Physics Commons^™

Recovering Stellar Population Parameters Via Two Full-Spectrum Fitting Algorithms In The Absence Of Model Uncertainties, Junqiang Ge, Renbin Yan, Michele Cappellari, Shude Mao, Hongyu Li, Youjun Lu

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Using mock spectra based on Vazdekis/MILES library fitted within the wavelength region 3600–7350 Å, we analyse the bias and scatter on the resulting physical parameters induced by the choice of fitting algorithms and observational uncertainties, but avoid effects of those model uncertainties. We consider two full-spectrum fitting codes: PPXF and STARLIGHT, in fitting for stellar population age, metallicity, mass-to-light ratio, and dust extinction. With PPXF, we find that both the bias μ in the population parameters and the scatter σ in the recovered logarithmic values follows the expected trend μ ∝ σ ∝ 1/(S/N)⁠. The bias increases for younger ages …

Sdss-Iv Manga: The Spatially Resolved Stellar Initial Mass Function In ~400 Early-Type Galaxies, Taniya Parikh, Daniel Thomas, Claudia Maraston, Kyle B. Westfall, Daniel Goddard, Jianhui Lian, Sofia Meneses-Goytia, Amy Jones, Sam Vaughan, Brett H. Andrews, Matthew Bershady, Dmitry Bizyaev, Jonathan Brinkmann, Joel R. Brownstein, Kevin Bundy, Niv Drory, Eric Emsellem, David R. Law, Jeffrey A. Newman, Alexandre Roman-Lopes, David Wake, Renbin Yan, Zheng Zheng

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory provides the opportunity to make precise spatially resolved measurements of the IMF slope in galaxies owing to its unique combination of spatial resolution, wavelength coverage, and sample size. We derive radial gradients in age, element abundances, and IMF slope analysing optical and near-infrared absorption features from stacked spectra out to the half-light radius of 366 early-type galaxies with masses 9.9–10.8 log M/M_⊙. We find flat gradients in age and [α/Fe] ratio, as well as negative gradients in metallicity, consistent with the literature. We further derive significant negative gradients …

Sdss Iv Manga – Ssfr Profiles And The Slow Quenching Of Discs In Green Valley Galaxies, Francesco Belfiore, Roberto Maiolino, Kevin Bundy, Karen Masters, Matthew Bershady, Grecco A. Oyarzún, Lihwai Lin, Mariana Cano-Diaz, David Wake, Ashley Spindler, Daniel Thomas, Joel R. Brownstein, Niv Drory, Renbin Yan

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We study radial profiles in H α equivalent width and specific star formation rate (sSFR) derived from spatially resolved SDSS-IV MaNGA spectroscopy to gain insight on the physical mechanisms that suppress star formation and determine a galaxy’s location in the SFR-M_⋆ diagram. Even within the star-forming ‘main sequence’, the measured sSFR decreases with stellar mass, in both an integrated and spatially resolved sense. Flat sSFR radial profiles are observed for log(M_⋆/M_⊙) < 10.5, while star-forming galaxies of higher mass show a significant decrease in sSFR in the central regions, a likely consequence of both larger bulges and an inside-out growth history. Our primary focus is the green valley, constituted by galaxies lying below the star formation main sequence, but not fully passive. In the green valley we find sSFR profiles that are suppressed with respect to star-forming galaxies of the same mass at all galactocentric distances out to 2 effective radii. The responsible quenching mechanism therefore appears to affect the entire galaxy, not simply an …

Sdss-Iv Manga: Stellar Angular Momentum Of About 2300 Galaxies: Unveiling The Bimodality Of Massive Galaxy Properties, Mark T. Graham, Michele Cappellari, Hongyu Li, Shude Mao, Matthew A. Bershady, Dmitry Bizyaev, Jonathan Brinkmann, Joel R. Brownstein, Kevin Bundy, Niv Drory, David R. Law, Kaike Pan, Daniel Thomas, David A. Wake, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Kyle Westfall, Renbin Yan

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We measure λ_Re⁠, a proxy for galaxy specific stellar angular momentum within one effective radius, and the ellipticity, ϵ, for about 2300 galaxies of all morphological types observed with integral field spectroscopy as part of the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory survey, the largest such sample to date. We use the (λ_Re, ϵ) diagram to separate early-type galaxies into fast and slow rotators. We also visually classify each galaxy according to its optical morphology and two-dimensional stellar velocity field. Comparing these classifications to quantitative λ_Re measurements reveals tight …

The [Cii] 158ΜM Line Emission In High-Redshift Galaxies, Guilaine Lagache, Morgane Cousin, Marios Chatzikos

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Gas is a crucial component of galaxies, providing the fuel to form stars, and it is impossible to understand the evolution of galaxies without knowing their gas properties. The [CII] fine structure transition at 158 μm is the dominant cooling line of cool interstellar gas, and is the brightest of emission lines from star forming galaxies from FIR through metre wavelengths, almost unaffected by attenuation. With the advent of ALMA and NOEMA, capable of detecting [CII]-line emission in high-redshift galaxies, there has been a growing interest in using the [CII] line as a probe of the physical conditions of …

Evolution Of Galactic Outflows At Z ~ 0–2 Revealed With Sdss, Deep2, And Keck Spectra, Yuma Sugahara, Masami Ouchi, Lihwai Lin, Crystal L. Martin, Yoshiaki Ono, Yuichi Harikane, Takatoshi Shibuya, Renbin Yan

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We conduct a systematic study of galactic outflows in star-forming galaxies at z ~ 0–2 based on the absorption lines of optical spectra taken from SDSS DR7, DEEP2 DR4, and Keck (Erb et al.). We carefully make stacked spectra of homogeneous galaxy samples with similar stellar mass distributions at z ~ 0–2 and perform the multicomponent fitting of model absorption lines and stellar continua to the stacked spectra. We obtain the maximum (v_max) and central (v_out) outflow velocities and estimate the mass loading factors (η), a ratio of the mass outflow rate …

The Sdss-Iv Manga Sample: Design, Optimization, And Usage Considerations, David A. Wake, Kevin Bundy, Aleksandar M. Diamond-Stanic, Renbin Yan, Michael R. Blanton, Matthew A. Bershady, José R. Sánchez-Gallego, Niv Drory, Amy Jones, Guinevere Kauffmann, David R. Law, Cheng Li, Nicholas Macdonald, Karen Masters, Daniel Thomas, Jeremy Tinker, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Joel R. Brownstein

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We describe the sample design for the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey and present the final properties of the main samples along with important considerations for using these samples for science. Our target selection criteria were developed while simultaneously optimizing the size distribution of the MaNGA integral field units (IFUs), the IFU allocation strategy, and the target density to produce a survey defined in terms of maximizing signal-to-noise ratio, spatial resolution, and sample size. Our selection strategy makes use of redshift limits that only depend on i-band absolute magnitude (M_i ), or, for a small subset of our sample, …

Sdss-Iv Manga – The Spatially Resolved Transition From Star Formation To Quiescence, Francesco Belfiore, Roberto Maiolino, Claudia Maraston, Eric Emsellem, Matthew A. Bershady, Karen L. Masters, Dmitry Bizyaev, Médéric Boquien, Joel R. Brownstein, Kevin Bundy, Aleksandar M. Diamond-Stanic, Niv Drory, Timothy M. Heckman, David R. Law, Olena Malanushenko, Audrey Oravetz, Kaike Pan, Alexandre Roman-Lopes, Daniel Thomas, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Kyle B. Westfall, Renbin Yan

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Using spatially resolved spectroscopy from SDSS-IV MaNGA we have demonstrated that low ionization emission-line regions (LIERs) in local galaxies result from photoionization by hot evolved stars, not active galactic nuclei, hence tracing galactic region hosting old stellar population where, despite the presence of ionized gas, star formation is no longer occurring. LIERs are ubiquitous in both quiescent galaxies and in the central regions of galaxies where star formation takes place at larger radii. We refer to these two classes of galaxies as extended LIER (eLIER) and central LIER (cLIER) galaxies, respectively. cLIERs are late-type galaxies primarily spread across the green …

Sdss-Iv Manga: A Serendipitous Observation Of A Potential Gas Accretion Event, Edmond Cheung, David V. Stark, Song Huang, Kate H. R. Rubin, Lihwai Lin, Christy Tremonti, Kai Zhang, Renbin Yan, Dmitry Bizyaev, Médéric Boquien

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The nature of warm, ionized gas outside of galaxies may illuminate several key galaxy evolutionary processes. A serendipitous observation by the MaNGA survey has revealed a large, asymmetric Hα complex with no optical counterpart that extends ≈8'' (≈6.3 kpc) beyond the effective radius of a dusty, starbursting galaxy. This Hα extension is approximately three times the effective radius of the host galaxy and displays a tail-like morphology. We analyze its gas-phase metallicities, gaseous kinematics, and emission-line ratios and discuss whether this Hα extension could be diffuse ionized gas, a gas accretion event, or something else. We find …

Sdss-Iv Manga Ifs Galaxy Survey—Survey Design, Execution, And Initial Data Quality, Renbin Yan, Kevin Bundy, David R. Law, Matthew A. Bershady, Brett Andrews, Brian Cherinka, Aleksandar M. Diamond-Stanic, Niv Drory, Nicholas Macdonald, José R. Sánchez-Gallego, Daniel Thomas, David A. Wake, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Kyle B. Westfall, Kai Zhang, Alfonso Aragón-Salamanca, Francesco Belfiore, Dmitry Bizyaev, Guillermo A. Blanc, Michael R. Blanton, Joel Brownstein, Michele Cappellari, Richard D'Souza, Eric Emsellem, Hai Fu, Patrick Gaulme, Mark T. Graham, Daniel Goddard, James E. Gunn, Paul Harding

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The MaNGA Survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. It is obtaining integral field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies at a spectral resolution of R ~ 2000 from 3622 to 10354 Å. The design of the survey is driven by a set of science requirements on the precision of estimates of the following properties: star formation rate surface density, gas metallicity, stellar population age, metallicity, and abundance ratio, and their gradients; stellar and gas kinematics; and enclosed gravitational mass as a function of radius. We describe …

The Quenching Timescale And Quenching Rate Of Galaxies, Jianhui Lian, Renbin Yan, Kai Zhang, Xu Kong

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The average star formation rate (SFR) in galaxies has been declining since the redshift of 2. A fraction of galaxies quench and become quiescent. We constrain two key properties of the quenching process: the quenching timescale and the quenching rate among galaxies. We achieve this by analyzing the galaxy number density profile in NUV−u color space and the distribution in NUV−u versus u − i color–color diagram with a simple toy-model framework. We focus on galaxies in three mass bins between 10¹⁰ and 10^10.6 M _⊙. In the NUV−u versus u − i color–color …

Sdss-Iv Manga: Properties Of Galaxies With Kinematically Decoupled Stellar And Gaseous Components, Yifei Jin, Yanmei Chen, Yong Shi, C. A. Tremonti, M. A. Bershady, M. Merrifield, E. Emsellem, Hai Fu, D. Wake, K. Bundy, Lihwai Lin, M. Argudo-Fernandez, Song Huang, D. V. Stark, T. Storchi-Bergmann, D. Bizyaev, J. Brownstein, J. Chisholm, Qi Guo, Lei Hao, Jian Hu, Cheng Li, Ran Li, K. L. Masters, E. Malanushenko, Kaike Pan, R. A. Riffel, A. Roman-Lopes, A. Simmons, D. Thomas, Renbin Yan

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We study the properties of 66 galaxies with kinematically misaligned gas and stars from MaNGA survey. The fraction of kinematically misaligned galaxies varies with galaxy physical parameters, i.e. M_*, SFR and sSFR. According to their sSFR, we further classify these 66 galaxies into three categories, 10 star-forming, 26 ‘Green Valley’ and 30 quiescent ones. The properties of different types of kinematically misaligned galaxies are different in that the star-forming ones have positive gradient in D_n4000 and higher gas-phase metallicity, while the green valley/quiescent ones have negative D_n4000 gradients and lower gas-phase metallicity on average. …

Sdss Iv Manga – Spatially Resolved Diagnostic Diagrams: A Proof That Many Galaxies Are Liers, Francesco Belfiore, Roberto Maiolino, Claudia Maraston, Eric Emsellem, Matthew A. Bershady, Karen L. Masters, Renbin Yan, Dmitry Bizyaev, Médéric Boquien, Joel R. Brownstein, Kevin Bundy, Niv Drory, Timothy M. Heckman, David R. Law, Alexandre Roman-Lopes, Kaike Pan, Letizia Stanghellini, Daniel Thomas, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Kyle B. Westfall

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We study the spatially resolved excitation properties of the ionized gas in a sample of 646 galaxies using integral field spectroscopy data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) programme. Making use of Baldwin–Philips–Terlevich diagnostic diagrams we demonstrate the ubiquitous presence of extended (kpc scale) low-ionization emission-line regions (LIERs) in both star-forming and quiescent galaxies. In star-forming galaxies LIER emission can be associated with diffuse ionized gas, most evident as extraplanar emission in edge-on systems. In addition, we identify two main classes of galaxies displaying LIER emission: ‘central LIER’ (cLIER) galaxies, where …

Stellar Mass–Gas-Phase Metallicity Relation At 0.5 ≤ Z ≤ 0.7: A Power Law With Increasing Scatter Toward The Low-Mass Regime, Yicheng Guo, David C. Koo, Yu Lu, John C. Forbes, Marc Rafelski, Jonathan R. Trump, Ricardo Amorín, Guillermo Barro, Romeel Davé, S. M. Faber, Nimish P. Hathi, Hassen Yesuf, Michael C. Cooper, Avishai Dekel, Puragra Guhathakurta, Evan N. Kirby, Anton M. Koekemoer, Pablo G. Pérez-González, Lihwai Lin, Jeffery A. Newman, Joel R. Primack, David J. Rosario, Christopher N. A. Willmer, Renbin Yan

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present the stellar mass (M_*)–gas-phase metallicity relation (MZR) and its scatter at intermediate redshifts (0.5 ≤ z ≤ 0.7) for for 1381 field galaxies collected from deep spectroscopic surveys. The star formation rate (SFR) and color at a given M_* of this magnitude-limited (R ≲ 24 AB) sample are representative of normal star-forming galaxies. For masses below 10⁹ M_☉ our sample of 237 galaxies is ~10 times larger than those in previous studies beyond the local universe. This huge gain in sample size enables superior constraints on the MZR and its scatter …

Interpreting The Ionization Sequence In Star-Forming Galaxy Emission-Line Spectra, Chris T. Richardson, James T. Allen, Jack A. Baldwin, Paul C. Hewett, Gary J. Ferland, Anthony Crider, Helen Meskhidze

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

High-ionization star-forming (SF) galaxies are easily identified with strong emission-line techniques such as the BPT diagram, and form an obvious ionization sequence on such diagrams. We use a locally optimally emitting cloud model to fit emission-line ratios that constrain the excitation mechanism, spectral energy distribution, abundances and physical conditions along the star formation ionization sequence. Our analysis takes advantage of the identification of a sample of pure SF galaxies, to define the ionization sequence, via mean field independent component analysis. Previous work has suggested that the major parameter controlling the ionization level in SF galaxies is the metallicity. Here we …

Candels Visual Classifications: Scheme, Data Release, And First Results, Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe, Mark Mozena, Dale D. Kocevski, Daniel H. Mcintosh, Jennifer Lotz, Eric F. Bell, Sandra M. Faber, Harry C. Ferguson, David C. Koo, Robert Bassett, Maksym Bernyk, Kirsten Blancato, Frederic Bournaud, Paolo Cassata, M. Castellano, Edmond Cheung, Christopher J. Conselice, D. Croton, Tomas Dahlen, Duilia F. De Mello, Laura Degroot, Jennifer Donley, Javiera Guedes, Norman A. Grogin, Nimish Hathi, Matt Hilton, Brett Hollon, Anton M. Koekemoer, Nick Liu, Ray A. Lucas

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We have undertaken an ambitious program to visually classify all galaxies in the five CANDELS fields down to H < 24.5 involving the dedicated efforts of over 65 individual classifiers. Once completed, we expect to have detailed morphological classifications for over 50,000 galaxies spanning 0 < z < 4 over all the fields, with classifications from 3 to 5 independent classifiers for each galaxy. Here, we present our detailed visual classification scheme, which was designed to cover a wide range of CANDELS science goals. This scheme includes the basic Hubble sequence types, but also includes a detailed look at mergers and interactions, the clumpiness of galaxies, k-corrections, and a variety of other structural properties. In this paper, we focus on the first field to be completed—GOODS-S, which has been classified at various depths. The wide area coverage spanning the full field (wide+deep+ERS) includes 7634 galaxies that have been classified by at least three different people. In the deep area of the field, 2534 galaxies have been classified by at least five different people at three different depths. With this paper, we release to the public …

Evidence For (And Against) Progenitor Bias In The Size Growth Of Compact Red Galaxies, Stephanie K. Keating, Roberto G. Abraham, Ricardo Schiavon, Genevieve Graves, Ivana Damjanov, Renbin Yan, Jeffrey Newman, Luc Simard

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Most massive, passive galaxies are compact at high redshifts, but similarly compact massive galaxies are rare in the local universe. The most common interpretation of this phenomenon is that massive galaxies have grown in size by a factor of about five since redshift z = 2. An alternative explanation is that recently quenched massive galaxies are larger (a "progenitor bias"). In this paper, we explore the importance of progenitor bias by looking for systematic differences in the stellar populations of compact early-type galaxies in the DEEP2 survey as a function of size. Our analysis is based on applying the statistical …

Overview Of The Sdss-Iv Manga Survey: Mapping Nearby Galaxies At Apache Point Observatory, Kevin Bundy, Matthew A. Bershady, David R. Law, Renbin Yan, Niv Drory, Nicholas Macdonald, David A. Wake, Brian Cherinka, José R. Sánchez-Gallego, Anne-Marie Weijmans, Daniel Thomas, Christy Tremonti, Karen Masters, Lodovico Coccato, Aleksandar M. Diamond-Stanic, Alfonso Aragón-Salamanca, Vladimir Avila-Reese, Carles Badenes, Jésus Falcón-Barroso, Francesco Belfiore, Dmitry Bizyaev, Guillermo A. Blanc, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Michael R. Blanton, Joel R. Brownstein, Nell Byler, Michele Cappellari, Charlie Conroy, Aaron A. Dutton, Eric Emsellem, Kai Zhang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present an overview of a new integral field spectroscopic survey called MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory), one of three core programs in the fourth-generation Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) that began on 2014 July 1. MaNGA will investigate the internal kinematic structure and composition of gas and stars in an unprecedented sample of 10,000 nearby galaxies. We summarize essential characteristics of the instrument and survey design in the context of MaNGA's key science goals and present prototype observations to demonstrate MaNGA's scientific potential. MaNGA employs dithered observations with 17 fiber-bundle integral field units that vary in …

The Gentle Growth Of Galaxies At High Redshifts In Overdense Environments, Emilio Romano-Díaz, Isaac Shlosman, Jun-Hwan Choi, Raphael Sadoun

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We have explored prevailing modes of galaxy growth for redshifts z ~ 6-14, comparing substantially overdense and normal regions of the universe, using high-resolution zoom-in cosmological simulations. Such rare overdense regions have been projected to host high-z quasars. We demonstrate that galaxies in such environments grow predominantly by a smooth accretion from cosmological filaments which dominates the mass input from major, intermediate, and minor mergers. We find that by z ~ 6, the accumulated galaxy mass fraction from mergers falls short by a factor of 10 of the cumulative accretion mass for galaxies in the overdense regions, and by …

The Inside-Out Growth Of The Most Massive Galaxies At 0.3 < Z < 0.9, Lei Bai, H. K. C. Yee, Renbin Yan, Eve Lee, David G. Gilbank, E. Ellingson, L. F. Barrientos, M. D. Gladders, B. C. Hsieh, I. H. Li

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We study the surface brightness profiles of a sample of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) with 0.3 < z < 0.9.

For the remainder of the abstract, please download this article or visit https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/789/2/134

Secular Damping Of Stellar Bars In Spinning Dark Matter Halos, Stacy Long, Isaac Shlosman, Clayton Heller

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We demonstrate using numerical simulations of isolated galaxies that growth of stellar bars in spinning dark matter halos is heavily suppressed in the secular phase of evolution. In a representative set of models, we show that for values of the cosmological spin parameter λ ≳ 0.03, bar growth (in strength and size) becomes increasingly quenched. Furthermore, the slowdown of the bar pattern speed weakens considerably with increasing λ until it ceases completely. The terminal structure of the bars is affected as well, including extent and shape of their boxy/peanut bulges. The essence of this effect lies in the modified angular …

The Deep2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: Design, Observations, Data Reduction, And Redshifts, Jeffery A. Newman, Michael C. Cooper, Marc Davis, S. M. Faber, Alison L. Coil, Puragra Guhathakurta, David C. Koo, Andrew C. Phillips, Charlie Conroy, Aaron A. Dutton, Douglas P. Finkbeiner, Brian F. Gerke, David J. Rosario, Benjamin J. Weiner, Renbin Yan, Justin J. Harker, Susan A. Kassin, N. P. Konidaris, Kamson Lai, Darren S. Madgwick, K. G. Noeske, Gregory D. Wirth, A. J. Connolly, N. Kaiser, Evan N. Kirby, Brian C. Lemaux, Lihwai Lin, Jennifer M. Lotz, G. A. Luppino, C. Marinoni

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We describe the design and data analysis of the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey, the densest and largest high-precision redshift survey of galaxies at z ~ 1 completed to date. The survey was designed to conduct a comprehensive census of massive galaxies, their properties, environments, and large-scale structure down to absolute magnitude M_B = –20 at z ~ 1 via ~90 nights of observation on the Keck telescope. The survey covers an area of 2.8 deg² divided into four separate fields observed to a limiting apparent magnitude of R_AB = 24.1. Objects with z ≲ 0.7 are readily …

Star Formation In Self-Gravitating Disks In Active Galactic Nuclei. Ii. Episodic Formation Of Broad-Line Regions, Jian-Min Wang, Pu Du, Jack A. Baldwin, Jun-Qiang Ge, Chen Hu, Gary J. Ferland

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

This is the second in a series of papers discussing the process and effects of star formation in the self-gravitating disk around the supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We have previously suggested that warm skins are formed above the star-forming (SF) disk through the diffusion of warm gas driven by supernova explosions. Here we study the evolution of the warm skins when they are exposed to the powerful radiation from the inner part of the accretion disk. The skins initially are heated to the Compton temperature, forming a Compton atmosphere (CAS) whose subsequent evolution is divided into …

Star Formation In Self-Gravitating Disks In Active Galactic Nuclei. I. Metallicity Gradients In Broad-Line Regions, Jian-Min Wang, Jun-Qiang Ge, Chen Hu, Jack A. Baldwin, Yan-Rong Li, Gary J. Ferland, Fei Xiang, Chang-Shuo Yan, Shu Zhang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

It has been suggested that the high metallicity generally observed in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars originates from ongoing star formation in the self-gravitating part of accretion disks around supermassive black holes (SMBHs). We designate this region as the star-forming (SF) disk, in which metals are produced from supernova explosions (SNexp) while at the same time inflows are driven by SNexp-excited turbulent viscosity to accrete onto the SMBHs. In this paper, an equation of metallicity governed by SNexp and radial advection is established to describe the metal distribution and evolution in the SF disk. We find that the metal …

Galaxy Formation In Heavily Overdense Regions At Z ~ 10: The Prevalence Of Disks In Massive Halos, Emilio Romano-Díaz, Jun-Hwan Choi, Isaac Shlosman, Michele Trenti

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Using a high-resolution cosmological numerical simulation, we have analyzed the evolution of galaxies at z ~ 10 in a highly overdense region of the universe. These objects could represent the high-redshift galaxies recently observed by the Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and could as well be possible precursors of QSOs at z ~ 6-7. To overcome the sampling and resolution problems in cosmological simulations of these rare regions, we have used the constrained realizations method. Our main result for z ~ 10 shows the high-resolution central region of 3.5 h^–1 Mpc radius in comoving coordinates being completely dominated by …

The Dark Side Of Qso Formation At High Redshifts, Emilio Romano-Díaz, Isaac Shlosman, Michele Trenti, Yehuda Hoffman

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Observed high-redshift QSOs, at z ~ 6, may reside in massive dark matter (DM) halos of more than 10¹² M_☉ and are thus expected to be surrounded by overdense regions. In a series of 10 constrained simulations, we have tested the environment of such QSOs. The usage of constrained realizations has enabled us to address the issue of cosmic variance and to study the statistical properties of the QSO host halos. Comparing the computed overdensities with respect to the unconstrained simulations of regions empty of QSOs, assuming there is no bias between the DM and baryon distributions, and …