209 research outputs found
Local variations of the Stellar Velocity Ellipsoid-I: the disc of galaxies in the Auriga simulations
DW-M and JF-B acknowledge support through the RAVET project by the grant PID2019-107427GB-C32 from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU), and through the IAC project TRACES which is partially supported through the state budget and the regional budget of the Consejer ' ia de Econom ' ia, Industria, Comercio y Conocimiento of the Canary Islands Autonomous Community.The connection between the Stellar Velocity Ellipsoid (SVE) and the dynamical evolution of galaxies has been a matter of
debate in the last years and there is no clear consensus whether different heating agents (e.g. spiral arms, giant molecular clouds,
bars and mergers) leave clear detectable signatures in the present day kinematics. Most of these results are based on a single
and global SVE and have not taken into account that these agents do not necessarily equally affect all regions of the stellar
disc. We study the two-dimensional (2D) spatial distribution of the SVE across the stellar discs of Auriga galaxies, a set of
high resolution magnetohydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations, to unveil the connection between local and global
kinematic properties in the disc region.We find very similar, global, σz/σr = 0.80 ± 0.08 values for galaxies of different Hubble
types. This shows that the global properties of the SVE at z = 0 are not a good indicator of the heating and cooling events
experienced by galaxies.We also find that similar σz/σr radial profiles are obtained through different combinations of σz and σr
trends: at a local level, the vertical and radial components can evolve differently, leading to similar σz/σr profiles at z = 0. By
contrast, the 2D spatial distribution of the SVE varies a lot more from galaxy to galaxy. Present day features in the SVE spatial
distribution may be associated with specific interactions such as fly-by encounters or the accretion of low mass satellites even
in the cases when the global SVE is not affected. The stellar populations decomposition reveals that young stellar populations
present colder and less isotropic SVEs and more complex 2D distributions than their older and hotter counterparts.Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU) PID2019-107427GB-C32Consejería de Economía, Industria, Comercio y Conocimiento of the Canary Islands Autonomous Communit
Census of HII regions in NGC 6754 derived with MUSE: Constraints on the metal mixing scale
We present a study of the HII regions in the galaxy NGC 6754 from a two
pointing mosaic comprising 197,637 individual spectra, using Integral Field
Spectrocopy (IFS) recently acquired with the MUSE instrument during its Science
Verification program. The data cover the entire galaxy out to ~2 effective
radii (re ), sampling its morphological structures with unprecedented spatial
resolution for a wide-field IFU. A complete census of the H ii regions limited
by the atmospheric seeing conditions was derived, comprising 396 individual
ionized sources. This is one of the largest and most complete catalogue of H ii
regions with spectroscopic information in a single galaxy. We use this
catalogue to derive the radial abundance gradient in this SBb galaxy, finding a
negative gradient with a slope consistent with the characteristic value for
disk galaxies recently reported. The large number of H ii regions allow us to
estimate the typical mixing scale-length (rmix ~0.4 re ), which sets strong
constraints on the proposed mechanisms for metal mixing in disk galaxies, like
radial movements associated with bars and spiral arms, when comparing with
simulations. We found evidence for an azimuthal variation of the oxygen
abundance, that may be related with the radial migration. These results
illustrate the unique capabilities of MUSE for the study of the enrichment
mechanisms in Local Universe galaxies.Comment: 13 pages, 7 Figurs, accepted for publishing in A&
Qualitative and quantitative characterization of exosomes secreted by rat hepatocytes
Comunicaciones a congreso
Central star formation and metallicity in CALIFA interacting galaxies
We use optical integral-field spectroscopic (IFS) data from 103 nearby
galaxies at different stages of the merging event, from close pairs to merger
remnants provided by the CALIFA survey, to study the impact of the interaction
in the specific star formation and oxygen abundance on different galactic
scales. To disentangle the effect of the interaction and merger from internal
processes, we compared our results with a control sample of 80 non-interacting
galaxies. We confirm the moderate enhancement (2-3 times) of specific star
formation for interacting galaxies in central regions as reported by previous
studies; however, the specific star formation is comparable when observed in
extended regions. We find that control and interacting star-forming galaxies
have similar oxygen abundances in their central regions, when normalized to
their stellar masses. Oxygen abundances of these interacting galaxies seem to
decrease compared to the control objects at the large aperture sizes measured
in effective radius. Although the enhancement in central star formation and
lower metallicities for interacting galaxies have been attributed to tidally
induced inflows, our results suggest that other processes such as stellar
feedback can contribute to the metal enrichment in interacting galaxies.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Dissecting galactic bulges in space and time I: The importance of early formation scenarios vs. secular evolution
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2014 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reservedThe details of bulge formation via collapse, mergers, secular processes or their interplay remain unresolved. To start answering this question and quantify the importance of distinct mechanisms, we mapped a sample of three galactic bulges using data from the integral field spectrograph WiFeS on the ANU's 2.3-m telescope in Siding Spring Observatory. Its highresolution gratings (R ~ 7000) allow us to present a detailed kinematic and stellar population analysis of their inner structures with classical and novel techniques. The comparison of those techniques calls for the necessity of inversion algorithms in order to understand complex substructures and separate populations. We use line-strength indices to derive single stellar population equivalent ages and metallicities. Additionally, we use full spectral fitting methods, here the code STECKMAP, to extract their star formation histories. The high quality of our data allows us to study the 2D distribution of different stellar populations (i.e. young, intermediate and old). We can identify their dominant populations based on these age-discriminated 2D light and mass contribution. In all galactic bulges studied, at least 50 per cent of the stellar mass already existed 12 Gyr ago, more than currently predicted by simulations. A younger component (age between ~1 and ~8 Gyr) is also prominent and its present day distribution seems to be affected much more strongly by morphological structures, especially bars, than the older one. This in-depth analysis of the three bulges supports the notion of increasing complexity in their evolution, likely to be found in numerous bulge structures if studied at this level of detail, which cannot be achieved by mergers alone and require a non-negligible contribution of secular evolutionMKS acknowledges the support of the Instituto
de Astrofísica de Canarias via an Astrophysicist Resident
fellowship and Ignacio Martín-Navarro, Andra Stroe and Stéphane
Courteau for useful discussions. RC acknowledges the Ministerio
de Ciencia e Innovación by means of their FPI program (grant AYA-
2010-21322-C03-03 and AYA-2013-48226-C3-3-P). JFB acknowledges
support from the Ramón y Cajal Program and from the FP7
Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial
Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement number
289313. TRL thanks the support of the Spanish Ministerio de Educación,
Cultura y Deporte by means of the FPU fellowship. This research
has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and
Competitiveness (MINECO; grants AYA2010-21322-C03-02 and
AYA2009-11137) and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation
(MICINN; grants AYA2011-24728 and Consolider-Ingenio
CSD2010-00064) and by the Junta de Andalucía (FQM-108
Bar pattern speeds in CALIFA galaxies: I. Fast bars across the Hubble sequence
The bar pattern speed () is defined as the rotational
frequency of the bar, and it determines the bar dynamics. Several methods have
been proposed for measuring . The non-parametric method
proposed by Tremaine \& Weinberg (1984; TW) and based on stellar kinematics is
the most accurate. This method has been applied so far to 17 galaxies, most of
them SB0 and SBa types. We have applied the TW method to a new sample of 15
strong and bright barred galaxies, spanning a wide range of morphological types
from SB0 to SBbc. Combining our analysis with previous studies, we investigate
32 barred galaxies with their pattern speed measured by the TW method. The
resulting total sample of barred galaxies allows us to study the dependence of
on galaxy properties, such as the Hubble type. We measured
using the TW method on the stellar velocity maps provided by
the integral-field spectroscopy data from the CALIFA survey. Integral-field
data solve the problems that long-slit data present when applying the TW
method, resulting in the determination of more accurate . In
addition, we have also derived the ratio of the corotation radius to
the bar length of the galaxies. According to this parameter, bars can be
classified as fast ( \cal{R}\%\cal{R}$ and the galaxy morphological
type. Our results indicate that independent of the Hubble type, bars have been
formed and then evolve as fast rotators. This observational result will
constrain the scenarios of formation and evolution of bars proposed by
numerical simulations.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Observational hints of radial migration in disc galaxies from CALIFA
Context. According to numerical simulations, stars are not always kept at their birth galactocentric distances but they have a tendency to migrate. The importance of this radial migration in shaping galactic light distributions is still unclear. However, if radial migration is indeed important, galaxies with different surface brightness (SB) profiles must display differences in their stellar population properties.
Aims: We investigate the role of radial migration in the light distribution and radial stellar content by comparing the inner colour, age, and metallicity gradients for galaxies with different SB profiles. We define these inner parts, avoiding the bulge and bar regions and up to around three disc scale lengths (type I, pure exponential) or the break radius (type II, downbending; type III, upbending).
Methods: We analysed 214 spiral galaxies from the CALIFA survey covering different SB profiles. We made use of GASP2D and SDSS data to characterise the light distribution and obtain colour profiles of these spiral galaxies. The stellar age and metallicity profiles were computed using a methodology based on full-spectrum fitting techniques (pPXF, GANDALF, and STECKMAP) to the Integral Field Spectroscopic CALIFA data.
Results: The distributions of the colour, stellar age, and stellar metallicity gradients in the inner parts for galaxies displaying different SB profiles are unalike as suggested by Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Anderson-Darling tests. We find a trend in which type II galaxies show the steepest profiles of all, type III show the shallowest, and type I display an intermediate behaviour.
Conclusions: These results are consistent with a scenario in which radial migration is more efficient for type III galaxies than for type I systems, where type II galaxies present the lowest radial migration efficiency. In such a scenario, radial migration mixes the stellar content, thereby flattening the radial stellar properties and shaping different SB profiles. However, in light of these results we cannot further quantify the importance of radial migration in shaping spiral galaxies, and other processes, such as recent star formation or satellite accretion, might play a role
The O3N2 and N2 abundance indicators revisited: improved calibrations based on CALIFA and Te-based literature data
The use of IFS is since recently allowing to measure the emission line fluxes
of an increasingly large number of star-forming galaxies both locally and at
high redshift. The main goal of this study is to review the most widely used
empirical oxygen calibrations, O3N2 and N2, by using new direct abundance
measurements. We pay special attention to the expected uncertainty of these
calibrations as a function of the index value or abundance derived and the
presence of possible systematic offsets. This is possible thanks to the
analysis of the most ambitious compilation of Te-based HII regions to date.
This new dataset compiles the Te-based abundances of 603 HII regions extracted
from the literature but also includes new measurements from the CALIFA survey.
Besides providing new and improved empirical calibrations for the gas
abundance, we also present here a comparison between our revisited calibrations
with a total of 3423 additional CALIFA HII complexes with abundances derived
using the ONS calibration by Pilyugin et al. (2010). The combined analysis of
Te-based and ONS abundances allows us to derive their most accurate calibration
to date for both the O3N2 and N2 single-ratio indicators, in terms of all
statistical significance, quality and coverage of the space of parameters. In
particular, we infer that these indicators show shallower abundance
dependencies and statistically-significant offsets compared to those of Pettini
and Pagel (2004), Nagao et al. (2006) and P\'erez-Montero and Contini (2009).
The O3N2 and N2 indicators can be empirically applied to derive oxygen
abundances calibrations from either direct abundance determinations with random
errors of 0.18 and 0.16, respectively, or from indirect ones (but based on a
large amount of data) reaching an average precision of 0.08 and 0.09 dex
(random) and 0.02 and 0.08 dex (systematic; compared to the direct
estimations),respectively.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&
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