76 research outputs found
A Spectroscopic Survey of the Fields of 28 Strong Gravitational Lenses: The Group Catalog
With a large, unique spectroscopic survey in the fields of 28 galaxy-scale
strong gravitational lenses, we identify groups of galaxies in the 26
adequately-sampled fields. Using a group finding algorithm, we find 210 groups
with at least five member galaxies; the median number of members is eight. Our
sample spans redshifts of 0.04 0.76 with a median of 0.31,
including 174 groups with . Groups have radial velocity
dispersions of 60 1200 km s with a median of 350
km s. We also discover a supergroup in field B0712+472 at 0.29
consisting of three main groups. We recover groups similar to 85% of
those previously reported in these fields within our redshift range of
sensitivity and find 187 new groups with at least five members. The properties
of our group catalog, specifically 1) the distribution of , 2)
the fraction of all sample galaxies that are group members, and 3) the fraction
of groups with significant substructure, are consistent with those for other
catalogs. The distribution of group virial masses agrees well with theoretical
expectations. Of the lens galaxies, 12 of 26 (46%) (B1422+231, B1600+434,
B2114+022, FBQS J0951+2635, HE0435-1223, HST J14113+5211, MG0751+2716,
MGJ1654+1346, PG 1115+080, Q ER 0047-2808, RXJ1131-1231, and WFI J2033-4723)
are members of groups with at least five galaxies, and one more (B0712+472)
belongs to an additional, visually identified group candidate. There are groups
not associated with the lens that still are likely to affect the lens model; in
six of 25 (24%) fields (excluding the supergroup), there is at least one
massive ( 500 km s) group or group candidate projected
within 2 of the lens.Comment: 87 pages, 8 figures, a version of this was published in Ap
Evidence for non-stellar rest-frame near-IR emission associated with increased star formation in galaxies at
We explore the presence of non-stellar rest-frame near-IR () emission in galaxies at . Previous studies identified
this excess in relatively small samples and suggested that such non-stellar
emission, which could be linked to the polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons feature or hot dust emission, is associated with an
increased star formation rate (SFR). In this Letter, we confirm and quantify
the presence of an IR excess in a significant fraction of galaxies in the
3D-HST GOODS catalogs. By constructing a matched sample of galaxies with and
without strong non-stellar near-IR emission, we find that galaxies with such
emission are predominantly star-forming galaxies. Moreover, star-forming
galaxies with an excess show increased mid- and far-IR and H emission
compared to other star-forming galaxies without. While galaxies with a near-IR
excess show a larger fraction of individually detected X-ray active galactic
nuclei (AGNs), an X-ray stacking analysis, together with the IR-colors and
H profiles, shows that AGNs are unlikely to be the dominant source of
the excess in the majority of galaxies. Our results suggest that non-stellar
near-IR emission is linked to increased SFRs and is ubiquitous among
star-forming galaxies. As such, the near-IR emission might be a powerful tool
to measure SFRs in the era of the James Webb Space Telescope.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
A Spectroscopic Survey of the Fields of 28 Strong Gravitational Lenses: Implications for
Strong gravitational lensing provides an independent measurement of the
Hubble parameter (). One remaining systematic is a bias from the
additional mass due to a galaxy group at the lens redshift or along the
sightline. We quantify this bias for more than 20 strong lenses that have
well-sampled sightline mass distributions, focusing on the convergence
and shear . In 23% of these fields, a lens group contributes a 1%
convergence bias; in 57%, there is a similarly significant line-of-sight group.
For the nine time delay lens systems, is overestimated by 11%
on average when groups are ignored. In 67% of fields with total
0.01, line-of-sight groups contribute more convergence than
do lens groups, indicating that the lens group is not the only important mass.
Lens environment affects the ratio of four (quad) to two (double) image
systems; all seven quads have lens groups while only three of 10 doubles do,
and the highest convergences due to lens groups are in quads. We calibrate the
- relation: with a rms scatter of 0.34 dex.
Shear, which, unlike convergence, can be measured directly from lensed images,
can be a poor predictor of ; for 19% of our fields, is
. Thus, accurate cosmology using strong gravitational lenses
requires precise measurement and correction for all significant structures in
each lens field.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
The Evolution of the Fractions of Quiescent and Star-forming Galaxies as a Function of Stellar Mass Since z=3: Increasing Importance of Massive, Dusty Star-forming Galaxies in the Early Universe
Using the UltraVISTA DR1 and 3D-HST catalogs, we construct a
stellar-mass-complete sample, unique for its combination of surveyed volume and
depth, to study the evolution of the fractions of quiescent galaxies,
moderately unobscured star-forming galaxies, and dusty star-forming galaxies as
a function of stellar mass over the redshift interval . We
show that the role of dusty star-forming galaxies within the overall galaxy
population becomes more important with increasing stellar mass, and grows
rapidly with increasing redshift. Specifically, dusty star-forming galaxies
dominate the galaxy population with at . The ratio of dusty and non-dusty star-forming galaxies as
a function of stellar mass changes little with redshift. Dusty star-forming
galaxies dominate the star-forming population at , being a factor of 3-5 more common,
while unobscured star-forming galaxies dominate at . At , red
galaxies dominate the galaxy population at all redshift , either because
they are quiescent (at late times) or dusty star-forming (in the early
universe).Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted by Astrophysical Journal
Letters after minor revisio
Quiescent Galaxies in the 3D-HST Survey: Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Large Number of Galaxies with Relatively Old Stellar Populations at z~2
Quiescent galaxies at z~2 have been identified in large numbers based on
rest-frame colors, but only a small number of these galaxies have been
spectroscopically confirmed to show that their rest-frame optical spectra show
either strong Balmer or metal absorption lines. Here, we median stack the
rest-frame optical spectra for 171 photometrically-quiescent galaxies at 1.4 <
z < 2.2 from the 3D-HST grism survey. In addition to Hbeta (4861A), we
unambiguously identify metal absorption lines in the stacked spectrum,
including the G-band (4304A), Mg I (5175A), and Na I (5894A). This finding
demonstrates that galaxies with relatively old stellar populations already
existed when the universe was ~3 Gyr old, and that rest-frame color selection
techniques can efficiently select them. We find an average age of 1.3^0.1_0.3
Gyr when fitting a simple stellar population to the entire stack. We confirm
our previous result from medium-band photometry that the stellar age varies
with the colors of quiescent galaxies: the reddest 80% of galaxies are
dominated by metal lines and have a relatively old mean age of 1.6^0.5_0.4 Gyr,
whereas the bluest (and brightest) galaxies have strong Balmer lines and a
spectroscopic age of 0.9^0.2_0.1 Gyr. Although the spectrum is dominated by an
evolved stellar population, we also find [OIII] and Hbeta emission.
Interestingly, this emission is more centrally concentrated than the continuum
with L_[OIII] = 1.7 +/- 0.3 x 10^40 erg s^-1, indicating residual central star
formation or nuclear activity.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journal Letter
Predicting Quiescence: The Dependence of Specific Star Formation Rate on Galaxy Size and Central Density at 0.5<z<2.5
In this paper, we investigate the relationship between star formation and
structure, using a mass-complete sample of 27,893 galaxies at
selected from 3D-HST. We confirm that star-forming galaxies are larger than
quiescent galaxies at fixed stellar mass (M). However, in contrast
with some simulations, there is only a weak relation between star formation
rate (SFR) and size within the star-forming population: when dividing into
quartiles based on residual offsets in SFR, we find that the sizes of
star-forming galaxies in the lowest quartile are 0.270.06 dex smaller than
the highest quartile. We show that 50% of star formation in galaxies at fixed
M takes place within a narrow range of sizes (0.26 dex). Taken
together, these results suggest that there is an abrupt cessation of star
formation after galaxies attain particular structural properties. Confirming
earlier results, we find that central stellar density within a 1 kpc fixed
physical radius is the key parameter connecting galaxy morphology and star
formation histories: galaxies with high central densities are red and have
increasingly lower SFR/M, whereas galaxies with low central densities
are blue and have a roughly constant (higher) SFR/M at a given
redshift. We find remarkably little scatter in the average trends and a strong
evolution of 0.5 dex in the central density threshold correlated with
quiescence from . Neither a compact size nor high- are
sufficient to assess the likelihood of quiescence for the average galaxy;
rather, the combination of these two parameters together with M
results in a unique quenching threshold in central density/velocity.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, and 2 tables; Accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journa
A Spectroscopic Study of the Environments of Gravitational Lens Galaxies
(Abridged) We present the first results from our spectroscopic survey of the
environments of strong gravitational lenses. The lens galaxy belongs to a poor
group of galaxies in six of the eight systems in our sample. We discover three
new groups associated with the lens galaxies of BRI 0952-0115 (five members),
MG 1654+1346 (seven members), and B2114+022 (five members). We more than double
the number of members for another three previously known groups around the
lenses MG 0751+2716 (13 total members), PG 1115+080 (13 total members), and
B1422+231 (16 total members). We determine the kinematics of the six groups,
including their mean velocities, velocity dispersions, and projected spatial
centroids. The velocity dispersions of the groups range from 110 +170, -80 to
470 +100, -90 km/s. In at least three of the lenses -- MG0751, PG1115, and
B1422 -- the group environment significantly affects the lens potential. These
lenses happen to be the quadruply-imaged ones in our sample, which suggests a
connection between image configuration and environment. The lens galaxy is the
brightest member in fewer than half of the groups. Our survey also allows us to
assess for the first time whether mass structures along the line of sight are
important for lensing. We first show that, in principle, the lens potential may
be affected by line-of-sight structures over a wide range of spatial and
redshift offsets from the lens. We then quantify real line-of-sight effects
using our survey and find that at least four of the eight lens fields have
substantial interloping structures close in projection to the lens, and at
least one of those structures (in the field of MG0751) significantly affects
the lens potential.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Figure 6
posted as a JPEG image. Requires emulateapj.st
Exploring the chemical link between local ellipticals and their high-redshift progenitors
We present Keck/MOSFIRE K-band spectroscopy of the first mass-selected sample
of galaxies at . Targets are selected from the 3D-HST Treasury
survey. The six detected galaxies have a mean [NII]6584/H
ratio of , with a small standard deviation of 0.05. This mean
value is similar to that of UV-selected galaxies of the same mass. The mean
gas-phase oxygen abundance inferred from the [NII]/H ratios depends on
the calibration method, and ranges from 12+log(O/H) for the
{Pettini} & {Pagel} (2004) calibration to 12+log(O/H) for the
{Maiolino} {et~al.} (2008) calibration. Measurements of the stellar oxygen
abundance in nearby quiescent galaxies with the same number density indicate
12+log(O/H), similar to the gas-phase abundances of the
galaxies if the {Maiolino} {et~al.} (2008) calibration is used. This
suggests that these high-redshift star forming galaxies may be progenitors of
today's massive early-type galaxies. The main uncertainties are the absolute
calibration of the gas-phase oxygen abundance and the incompleteness of the
sample: the galaxies with detected H tend to be larger and
have higher star formation rates than the galaxies without detected H,
and we may still be missing the most dust-obscured progenitors.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ
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