402 research outputs found
Introductory Astronomy as a Measure of Grade Inflation
We use four years of introductory astronomy scores to analyze the ability of
the current population to perform college level work and measure the amount of
grade inflation across various majors. Using an objective grading scale, one
that is independent of grading curves, we find that 29% of intro astronomy
students fail to meet minimal standards for college level work. Of the
remaining students, 41% achieve satisfactory work, 30% achieve mastery of the
topics.
Intro astronomy scores correlate with SAT and college GPA. Sequential mapping
of the objective grade scheme onto GPA finds that college grades are inflated
by 0.2 for natural sciences majors, 0.3 for social sciences, professional
schools and undeclared majors), 0.5 for humanities majors. It is unclear from
the data whether grade inflation is due to easier grading curves or depression
of course material. Experiments with student motivation tools indicates that
poor student performance is due to deficiency in student abilities rather than
social factors (such as study time or decreased interest in academics), i.e.,
more stringent admission standards would resolve grade inflation.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, not to be submitted to any journa
AGN Activity in Giant LSB Galaxies
A search of large, HI-rich disk galaxies finds a significantly higher
fraction of low luminosity AGN signatures compared to other late-type galaxies.
Approximately half of the galaxies selected in this sample have AGN-like
behavior in their cores, the rest have HII nuclei resulting from simple star
formation. Since AGN behavior is not evident in all the sample galaxies, which
where selected by high gas mass, we speculate that it is the fuel flow rate
that is the common feature between late-type LSB disks and other active nuclear
galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX/AAS macros, 1 table, 3 postscript figures, accepted
for publication in A
The Structure of Galaxies: II. Fitting Functions and Scaling Relations for Ellipticals
Surface photometry of 311 ellipticals from the 2MASS imaging database is
analyzed with respect to the two most common fitting functions; the r^1/4 law
and the Sersic r^1/n model. The advantages and disadvantages of each fitting
function are examined. In particular, the r^1/4 law performs well in the middle
regions, but is inadequate for the core (inner 5 kpcs) and the outer regions
(beyond the half-light radius) which do not have r^1/4 shapes. It is found that
the Sersic r^1/n model produce good fits to the core regions of ellipticals (r
< r_half), but is an inadequate function for the entire profile of an
elliptical from core to halo due to competing effects on the Sersic n index and
the fact that the interior shape of an elliptical is only weakly correlated
with its halo shape. In addition, there are a wide range of Sersic parameters
that will equally describe the shape of the outer profile, degrading the Sersic
models usefulness as a describer of the entire profile. Empirically determined
parameters, such as half-light radius and total luminosity, have less scatter
than fitting function variables. The scaling relations for ellipticals are
often non-linear, but for ellipticals brighter than M_J < -23 the following
structural relations are found: L propto r^0.8 \pm 0.1, L propto Sigma^-0.5 \pm
0.1 and Sigma propto r^-1.5 \pm 0.1.Comment: 26 pages, 15 Figures, accepted by PAS
ARCHANGEL Galaxy Photometry System
Photometry of galaxies has typically focused on small, faint systems due to
their interest for cosmological studies. Large angular size galaxies, on the
other hand, offer a more detailed view into the properties of galaxies, but
bring a series of computational and technical difficulties that inhibit the
general astronomer from extracting all the information found in a detailed
galaxy image. To this end, a new galaxy photometry system has been developed
(mostly building on tools and techniques that have existed in the community for
decades) that combines ease of usage with a mixture of pre-built scripts. The
audience for this system is a new user (graduate student or non-optical
astronomer) with a fast, built-in learning curve to offer any astronomer, with
imaging data, a suite of tools to quickly extract meaningful parameters from
decent data. The tools are available either by a client/server web site or by
tarball for personal installation. The tools also provide simple scripts to
interface with various on-line datasets (e.g. 2MASS, Sloan, DSS) for data
mining capability of imaged data.
As a proof of concept, we preform a re-analysis of the 2MASS Large Galaxy
Atlas to demonstrate the differences in an automated pipeline, with its
emphasis on speed, versus this package with an emphasis on accuracy. This
comparison finds the structural parameters extracted from the 2MASS pipeline is
seriously flawed with scale lengths that are too small by 50% and central
surface brightness that are, on average, 1 to 0.5 mags too bright. A cautionary
tale on how to reduce information-rich data such as surface brightness
profiles. This document and software can be found at
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/archangel.Comment: 31 pages, 14 figures, software package at
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/archange
Systematic Bias in 2MASS Galaxy Photometry
We report the discovery of a serious bias in galaxy photometry reported in
the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog (Jarrett et al. 2000). Due to an undetermined
flaw in the 2MASS surface photometry routines, isophotal and total magnitudes
calculated by their methods underestimate the luminosity of galaxies from 10%
to 40%. This is found to be due to incorrectly determined scalelengths and
isophotal radii, which are used to define the aperture sizes for Kron and total
fluxes. While 2MASS metric aperture luminosities are correct (and, thus, colors
based on those apertures), comparison to other filters (e.g. optical) based on
total magnitudes will produce erroneous results. We use our own galaxy
photometry package (ARCHANGEL) to determine correct total magnitudes and colors
using the same 2MASS images, but with a more refined surface brightness
reduction scheme. Our resulting colors, and color-magnitude relation, are more
in line with model expectations and previous pointed observations.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, comment to communit
The Structure of Galaxies: III. Two Structural Families of Ellipticals
Using isophotal radius correlations for a sample of 2MASS ellipticals, we
have constructed a series of template surface brightness profiles to describe
the profile shapes of ellipticals as a function of luminosity. The templates
are a smooth function of luminosity, yet are not adequately matched to any
fitting function supporting the view that ellipticals are weakly non-homologous
with respect to structure. Through comparison to the templates, it is
discovered that ellipticals are divided into two families; those well matched
to the templates and a second class of ellipticals with distinctly shallower
profile slopes. We refer to these second type of ellipticals as D class, an old
morphological designation acknowledging diffuse appearance on photographic
material. D ellipticals cover the same range of luminosity, size and kinematics
as normal ellipticals, but maintain a signature of recent equal mass dry
mergers. We propose that normal ellipticals grow after an initial dissipation
formation era by accretion of low mass companions as outlined in hierarchical
formation scenarios, while D ellipticals are the result of later equal mass
mergers producing shallow luminosity profiles.Comment: 32 pages, 12 Figures, 1 table, accepted by A
Tests of Chemical Enrichment Scenarios in Ellipticals Using Continuum Colors and Spectroscopy
We combine spectroscopic metallicity values with integrated narrowband
continuum colors to explore the internal metallicity distribution in early-type
galaxies. The different techniques for determining metallicity (indices versus
colors) allows for an estimate of the contribution from metal-poor stars in a
predominantly metal-rich population which, in turn, places constraints on the
shape and width of a galaxy's metallicity distribution function (MDF). The
color-spectroscopic data is compared to the closed box, infall and
inhomogeneous chemical evolution models. The G-dwarf problem, a deficiency in
metal-poor stars as compared to closed box models, is evident in the dataset
and indicates this deficiency is common to all early-type galaxies. However,
even simple infall models predict galaxy colors which are too blue compared to
the observations. A simple analytic model is proposed which matches the
elliptical data and recent HST observations of M31 (Worthey et al 2005) and NGC
5128 (Harris & Harris 2000) by reducing the number of metal-poor stars in a
systematic fashion. While without physical justification, the shape of these
models are similar to predictions of inhomogeneous enrichment scenarios.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, accepted in A
Color--Mass-to-Light Ratio Relations for Disk Galaxies
We combine Spitzer observations of a sample of disk galaxies
spanning over 10 magnitudes in luminosity with optical luminosities and colors
to test population synthesis prescriptions for computing stellar mass. Many
commonly employed models fail to provide self-consistent results: the stellar
mass estimated from the luminosity in one band can differ grossly from that of
another band for the same galaxy. Independent models agree closely in the
optical (-band), but diverge at longer wavelengths. This effect is
particularly pronounced in recent models with substantial contributions from
TP-AGB stars. We provide revised color--mass-to-light ratio relations that
yield self-consistent stellar masses when applied to real galaxies. The
color is a good indicator of the mass-to-light ratio. Some additional
information is provided by , but neither it nor are particularly
useful for constraining the mass-to-light ratio on their own. In the
near-infrared, the mass-to-light ratio depends weakly on color, with typical
values of in the -band and
at .Comment: Astronomical Journal, in press. 15 pages, 8 figures, 7 table
Weighing Galaxy Disks with the Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation
We estimate the stellar masses of disk galaxies with two independent methods:
a photometrically self-consistent colormass-to-light ratio relation (CMLR)
from population synthesis models, and the Baryonic Tully-Fisher relation (BTFR)
calibrated by gas rich galaxies. These two methods give consistent results. The
CMLR correctly converts distinct Tully-Fisher relations in different bands into
the same BTFR. The BTFR is consistent with over nearly six
decades in mass, with no hint of a change in slope over that range. The
intrinsic scatter in the BTFR is negligible, implying that the IMF of disk
galaxies is effectively universal. The gas rich BTFR suggests an absolute
calibration of the stellar mass scale that yields nearly constant mass-to-light
ratios in the near-infrared (NIR): in and
at . There is only modest intrinsic scatter
( dex) about these typical values. There is no discernible variation
with color or other properties: the NIR luminosity is a good tracer of stellar
mass.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 6 figures, 5
tables, 17 page
Stellar Populations and the Star Formation Histories of LSB Galaxies: IV Spitzer Surface Photometry of LSB Galaxies
Surface photometry at 3.6m is presented for 61 low surface brightness
(LSB) galaxies ( 3.6m mag arcsecs). The sample covers a
range of luminosity from 11 to 22 in and size from 1 to 25 kpc.
The morphologies in the mid-IR are comparable to those in the optical with
3.6m imaging reaches similar surface brightness depth as ground-based
optical imaging. A majority of the resulting surface brightness profiles are
single exponential in shape with very few displaying upward or downward breaks.
The mean color of LSB is 2.3 with a standard deviation of 0.5.
Color-magnitude and two color diagrams are well matched to models of constant
star formation, where the spread in color is due to small changes in the star
formation rate (SFR) over the last 0.5 Gyrs as also suggested by the specific
star formation rate measured by H.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables, in press, PAS
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