20 research outputs found
HerMES: The contribution to the cosmic infrared background from galaxies selected by mass and redshift
The cosmic infrared background (CIB), discovered in Far
Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) data from the
Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE; Puget et al. 1996;
Fixsen et al. 1998), originates from thermal re-radiation of
imagine cutting out hundreds of thumbnails from a map centered
on the positions where galaxies are known to be, and averaging
those thumbnails together until an image of the average galaxy
emerges from the noise. These positional priors can come
in many forms, e.g., they could be catalogs of UV, optical,
IR, or radio sources. Note that the output is the average of
that population in the stacked maps, i.e., there will likely be
sources whose actual fluxes are higher or lower. Thus, the more
homogeneous the sources comprising the input list, the more
meaningful the stacked flux will be.Web of Scienc
The complex physics of dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshifts as revealed by Herschel and Spitzer
We combine far-infrared photometry from Herschel (PEP/HerMES) with deep mid-infrared spectroscopy from
Spitzer to investigate the nature and the mass assembly history of a sample of 31 luminous and ultraluminous
infrared galaxies ((U)LIRGs) at z ∼ 1 and 2 selected in GOODS-S with 24μm fluxes between 0.2 and 0.5 mJy.We
model the data with a self-consistent physical model (GRASIL) which includes a state-of-the-art treatment of dust
extinction and reprocessing. We find that all of our galaxies appear to require massive populations of old (>1 Gyr)
stars and, at the same time, to host a moderate ongoing activity of star formation (SFR 100M yr−1). The bulk of
the stars appear to have been formed a few Gyr before the observation in essentially all cases. Only five galaxies of
the sample require a recent starburst superimposed on a quiescent star formation history.We also find discrepancies
between our results and those based on optical-only spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting for the same objects;
by fitting their observed SEDs with our physical model we find higher extinctions (by ΔAV ∼ 0.81 and 1.14)
and higher stellar masses (by Δlog(M ) ∼ 0.16 and 0.36 dex) for z ∼ 1 and z ∼ 2 (U)LIRGs, respectively. The
stellar mass difference is larger for the most dust-obscured objects. We also find lower SFRs than those computed
from LIR using the Kennicutt relation due to the significant contribution to the dust heating by intermediate-age
stellar populations through “cirrus” emission (∼73% and ∼66% of the total LIR for z ∼ 1 and z ∼ 2 (U)LIRGs,
respectively).Department of HE and Training approved lis
Observing Supermassive Black Holes across cosmic time: from phenomenology to physics
In the last decade, a combination of high sensitivity, high spatial
resolution observations and of coordinated multi-wavelength surveys has
revolutionized our view of extra-galactic black hole (BH) astrophysics. We now
know that supermassive black holes reside in the nuclei of almost every galaxy,
grow over cosmological times by accreting matter, interact and merge with each
other, and in the process liberate enormous amounts of energy that influence
dramatically the evolution of the surrounding gas and stars, providing a
powerful self-regulatory mechanism for galaxy formation. The different
energetic phenomena associated to growing black holes and Active Galactic
Nuclei (AGN), their cosmological evolution and the observational techniques
used to unveil them, are the subject of this chapter. In particular, I will
focus my attention on the connection between the theory of high-energy
astrophysical processes giving rise to the observed emission in AGN, the
observable imprints they leave at different wavelengths, and the methods used
to uncover them in a statistically robust way. I will show how such a combined
effort of theorists and observers have led us to unveil most of the SMBH growth
over a large fraction of the age of the Universe, but that nagging
uncertainties remain, preventing us from fully understating the exact role of
black holes in the complex process of galaxy and large-scale structure
formation, assembly and evolution.Comment: 46 pages, 21 figures. This review article appears as a chapter in the
book: "Astrophysical Black Holes", Haardt, F., Gorini, V., Moschella, U and
Treves A. (Eds), 2015, Springer International Publishing AG, Cha
Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies
Fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is an almost
universally used technique that has matured significantly in the last decade.
Model predictions and fitting procedures have improved significantly over this
time, attempting to keep up with the vastly increased volume and quality of
available data. We review here the field of SED fitting, describing the
modelling of ultraviolet to infrared galaxy SEDs, the creation of
multiwavelength data sets, and the methods used to fit model SEDs to observed
galaxy data sets. We touch upon the achievements and challenges in the major
ingredients of SED fitting, with a special emphasis on describing the interplay
between the quality of the available data, the quality of the available models,
and the best fitting technique to use in order to obtain a realistic
measurement as well as realistic uncertainties. We conclude that SED fitting
can be used effectively to derive a range of physical properties of galaxies,
such as redshift, stellar masses, star formation rates, dust masses, and
metallicities, with care taken not to over-interpret the available data. Yet
there still exist many issues such as estimating the age of the oldest stars in
a galaxy, finer details ofdust properties and dust-star geometry, and the
influences of poorly understood, luminous stellar types and phases. The
challenge for the coming years will be to improve both the models and the
observational data sets to resolve these uncertainties. The present review will
be made available on an interactive, moderated web page (sedfitting.org), where
the community can access and change the text. The intention is to expand the
text and keep it up to date over the coming years.Comment: 54 pages, 26 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics &
Space Scienc
Arecibo PALFA survey and Einstein@Home: Binary pulsar discovery by volunteer computing
We report the discovery of the 20.7ms binary pulsar J1952+2630, made using the distributed computing project Einstein@Home in Pulsar ALFA survey observations with the Arecibo telescope. Follow-up observations with the Arecibo telescope confirm the binary nature of the system. We obtain a circular orbital solution with an orbital period of 9.4hr, a projected orbital radius of 2.8lt-s, and a mass function of f = 0.15 M ⊙ by analysis of spin period measurements. No evidence of orbital eccentricity is apparent; we set a 2σ upper limit e ≲ 1.7 × 10 -3 . The orbital parameters suggest a massive white dwarf companion with a minimum mass of 0.95 M ⊙ , assuming a pulsar mass of 1.4 M ⊙ . Most likely, this pulsar belongs to the rare class of intermediate-mass binary pulsars. Future timing observations will aim to determine the parameters of this system further, measure relativistic effects, and elucidate the nature of the companion star. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved
2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO (2SLAQ) survey: Evolution of the most massive galaxies
The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO (2SLAQ) survey is a new survey of distant Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) and faint quasars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) multi-color photometric data and spectroscopically observed using the 2dF instrument on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). In total, the 2SLAQ survey has measured over 11000 LRG redshifts, covering 180deg2 of SDSS imaging data, from 87 allocated nights of AAT time. Over 90% of these galaxies are within the range 0.45 < z < 0.7 and have luminosities consistent with ≥ 3L*. When combined with the lower redshift SDSS LRGs, the evolution in the luminosity function of these LRGs is fully consistent with that expected from a simple passive (luminosity) evolution model. This observation suggests that at least half of the LRGs seen at z ≃ 0.2 must already have more than half their stellar mass in place by z ≃ 0.6, i.e., our observations are inconsistent with a majority of LRGs experiencing a major merger in the last 6 Gyrs. However, some "frosting" (i.e., minor mergers) has taken place with ∼5% of LRGs showing some evidence of recent and/or on-going star-formation, but it only contributes ∼1% of their stellar mass
Extragalactic number counts at 100 μm, free from cosmic variance
We use data from the Disc Emission via a Bias-free Reconnaissance in the Infrared/Submillimetre (DEBRIS) survey, taken at 100 μm with the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer instrument on board the Herschel Space Observatory, to make a cosmic variance independent measurement of the extragalactic number counts. These data consist of 323 small-area mapping observations performed uniformly across the sky, and thus represent a sparse sampling of the astronomical sky with an effective coverage of ∼2.5 deg2. We find our cosmic variance independent analysis to be consistent with previous count measurements made using relatively small area surveys. Furthermore, we find no statistically significant cosmic variance on any scale within the errors of our data. Finally, we interpret these results to estimate the probability of galaxy source confusion in the study of debris discs
Discovery of a multiply lensed submillimeter galaxy in early HerMES Herschel/SPIRE data
‘In these times, during the rise in the popularity of institutional repositories, the Society does not forbid authors from depositing their work in such repositories. However, the AAS regards the deposit of scholarly work in such repositories to be a decision of the individual scholar, as long as the individual's actions respect the diligence of the journals and their reviewers.’ Original article can be found at: http://iopscience.iop.org/ Copyright American Astronomical SocietyWe report the discovery of a bright (f (250 μm)>400 mJy), multiply lensed submillimeter galaxy HERMES J105751.1+573027 in Herschel/SPIRE Science Demonstration Phase data from the HerMES project. Interferometric 880 μm Submillimeter Array observations resolve at least four images with a large separation of ∼9″. A high-resolution adaptive optics Kp image with Keck/NIRC2 clearly shows strong lensing arcs. Follow-up spectroscopy gives a redshift of z = 2.9575, and the lensing model gives a total magnification of μ ∼ 11 ± 1. The large image separation allows us to study the multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) of the lensed source unobscured by the central lensing mass. The far-IR/millimeter-wave SED is well described by a modified blackbody fit with an unusually warm dust temperature, 88 ± 3 K. We derive a lensing-corrected total IR luminosity of (1.43 ± 0.09) × 1013 L⊙, implying a star formation rate of ∼2500 M⊙ yr-1. However, models primarily developed from brighter galaxies selected at longer wavelengths are a poor fit to the full optical-to-millimeter SED. A number of other strongly lensed systems have already been discovered in early Herschel data, and many more are expected as additional data are collected.Peer reviewe
Radio galaxies in the 2SLAQ Luminous Red Galaxy Survey - I. The evolution of low-power radio galaxies to z \~ 0.7
We have combined optical data from the 2dF-SDSS Luminous Red Galaxy and QSO
(2SLAQ) redshift survey with radio measurements from the 1.4 GHz VLA FIRST and
NVSS surveys to identify a volume-limited sample of 391 radio galaxies at
redshift 0.4<z<0.7. By determining an accurate radio luminosity function for
early-type galaxies in this redshift range, we can investigate the cosmic
evolution of the radio-galaxy population over a wide range in radio luminosity.
The low-power radio galaxies in our LRG sample (those with 1.4 GHz radio
luminosities in the range 10^{24} to 10^{25} W/Hz, corresponding to FR I radio
galaxies in the local universe) undergo significant cosmic evolution over the
redshift range 0<z<0.7, consistent with pure luminosity evolution of the form
(1+z)^k where k=2.0+/-0.3. Our results appear to rule out (at the 6-7 sigma
level) models in which low-power radio galaxies undergo no cosmic evolution.
The most powerful radio galaxies in our sample (with radio luminosities above
10^{26} W/Hz) may undergo more rapid evolution over the same redshift range.
The evolution seen in the low-power radio-galaxy population implies that the
total energy input into massive early-type galaxies from AGN heating increases
with redshift, and was roughly 50% higher at z~0.55 (the median redshift of the
2SLAQ LRG sample) than in the local universe.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, one 10-page data table in landscape format.
Replaced with final version accepted for publication in MNRA