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Astrophysics and Astronomy

Galaxies: evolution

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Articles 31 - 60 of 272

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Time-Scales For Galaxies Crossing The Green Valley, S. Phillipps, M. N. Bremer, A. M. Hopkins, R. De Propris, E. N. Taylor, P. A. James, L. J.M. Davies, M. E. Cluver, S. P. Driver, S. A. Eales, Benne W. Holwerda, L. S. Kelvin, A. E. Sansom Mar 2019

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Time-Scales For Galaxies Crossing The Green Valley, S. Phillipps, M. N. Bremer, A. M. Hopkins, R. De Propris, E. N. Taylor, P. A. James, L. J.M. Davies, M. E. Cluver, S. P. Driver, S. A. Eales, Benne W. Holwerda, L. S. Kelvin, A. E. Sansom

Faculty Scholarship

We explore the constraints that can be placed on the evolutionary time-scales for typical low-redshift galaxies evolving from the blue cloud through the green valley and on to the red sequence. We utilize galaxies from the GAMA survey with 0.1 < z < 0.2 and classify them according to the intrinsic (u∗ - r∗) colours of their stellar populations, as determined by fits to their multiwavelength spectral energy distributions. Using these fits to also determine stellar population ages and star formation time-scales, we argue that our results are consistent with a green valley population dominated by galaxies that are simply decreasing their star formation (running out of gas) over a time-scale of 2-4 Gyr which are seen at a specific epoch in their evolution (approximately 1.6 e-folding times after their peak in star formation). If their fitted star formation histories are extrapolated forward, the green galaxies will further redden over time, until they attain the colours of a passive population. In this picture, no specific quenching event which cuts-off their star formation is required, though it remains possible that the decline in star formation in green galaxies may be expedited by internal or external forces. However, there is no evidence that green galaxies have recently changed their star formation time-scales relative to their previous longer term star formation histories.

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Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Environmental Quenching Of Centrals And Satellites In Groups, L. J.M. Davies, A. S.G. Robotham, C. Del P. Lagos, S. P. Driver, A. R.H. Stevens, Y. M. Bahé, M. Alpaslan, M. N. Bremer, M. J.I. Brown, S. Brough, J. Bland-Hawthorn, L. Cortese, P. Elahi, M. W. Grootes, Benne W. Holwerda, A. D. Ludlow, S. Mcgee, M. Owers, S. Phillipps Mar 2019

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Environmental Quenching Of Centrals And Satellites In Groups, L. J.M. Davies, A. S.G. Robotham, C. Del P. Lagos, S. P. Driver, A. R.H. Stevens, Y. M. Bahé, M. Alpaslan, M. N. Bremer, M. J.I. Brown, S. Brough, J. Bland-Hawthorn, L. Cortese, P. Elahi, M. W. Grootes, Benne W. Holwerda, A. D. Ludlow, S. Mcgee, M. Owers, S. Phillipps

Faculty Scholarship

Recently a number of studies have found a similarity between the passive fraction of central and satellite galaxies when controlled for both stellar and halo mass. These results suggest that the quenching processes that affect galaxies are largely agnostic to central/satellite status, which contradicts the traditional picture of increased satellite quenching via environmental processes such as stripping, strangulation, and starvation. Here we explore this further using the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, which extends to ~2 dex lower in stellar mass than SDSS, is more complete for closely separated galaxies (≳395 per cent compared to ≳370 per cent), and …

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The Dependence Of Intrinsic Alignment Of Galaxies On Wavelength Using Kids And Gama, Christos Georgiou, Harry Johnston, Henk Hoekstra, Massimo Viola, Konrad Kuijken, Benjamin Joachimi, Nora Elisa Chisari, Daniel J. Farrow, Hendrik Hildebrandt, Benne W. Holwerda, Arun Kannawadi Feb 2019

The Dependence Of Intrinsic Alignment Of Galaxies On Wavelength Using Kids And Gama, Christos Georgiou, Harry Johnston, Henk Hoekstra, Massimo Viola, Konrad Kuijken, Benjamin Joachimi, Nora Elisa Chisari, Daniel J. Farrow, Hendrik Hildebrandt, Benne W. Holwerda, Arun Kannawadi

Faculty Scholarship

The outer regions of galaxies are more susceptible to the tidal interactions that lead to intrinsic alignments of galaxies. The resulting alignment signal may therefore depend on the passband if the colours of galaxies vary spatially. To quantify this, we measured the shapes of galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts from the GAMA survey using deep gri imaging data from the KiloDegree Survey. The performance of the moment-based shape measurement algorithm DEIMOS was assessed using dedicated image simulations, which showed that the ellipticities could be determined with an accuracy better than 1% in all bands. Additional tests for potential systematic errors did …

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Multi-Band Optical And Near-Infrared Properties Of Faint Submillimeter Galaxies With Serendipitous Alma Detections, Pallavi Patil, Kristina Nyland, Mark Lacy, Duncan Farrah, José Afonso, Wayne A. Barkhouse, Jason Surace Jan 2019

Multi-Band Optical And Near-Infrared Properties Of Faint Submillimeter Galaxies With Serendipitous Alma Detections, Pallavi Patil, Kristina Nyland, Mark Lacy, Duncan Farrah, José Afonso, Wayne A. Barkhouse, Jason Surace

Physics Faculty Publications

We present a catalog of 26 faint submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) in the XMM Large Scale Structure (XMM-LSS) field identified by cross-matching serendipitously detected sources in archival pre–Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) band 6 and 7 data with multiband near-infrared (NIR) and optical data from the Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey, the VISTA Deep Extragalactic Survey, the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Legacy Large Survey, and the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program. Of the 26 SMGs in our sample, 15 are identified here for the first time. The majority of the sources in our sample (16/26) have faint submillimeter fluxes (0.1 mJy < S 1mm …

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Reproducible K-Means Clustering In Galaxy Feature Data From The Gama Survey, Sebastian Turner, Lee S. Kelvin, Ivan K. Baldry, Paulo J. Lisboa, Steven N. Longmore, Chris A. Collins, Benne W. Holwerda, Andrew M. Hopkins, Jochen Liske Jan 2019

Reproducible K-Means Clustering In Galaxy Feature Data From The Gama Survey, Sebastian Turner, Lee S. Kelvin, Ivan K. Baldry, Paulo J. Lisboa, Steven N. Longmore, Chris A. Collins, Benne W. Holwerda, Andrew M. Hopkins, Jochen Liske

Faculty Scholarship

A fundamental bimodality of galaxies in the local Universe is apparent in many of the features used to describe them. Multiple sub-populations exist within this framework, each representing galaxies following distinct evolutionary pathways. Accurately identifying and characterizing these sub-populations requires that a large number of galaxy features be analysed simultaneously. Future galaxy surveys such as LSST and Euclid will yield data volumes for which traditional approaches to galaxy classification will become unfeasible. To address this, we apply a robust k-means unsupervized clustering method to feature data derived from a sample of 7338 local-Universe galaxies selected from the Galaxy And Mass …

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The Causes Of The Red Sequence, The Blue Cloud, The Green Valley, And The Green Mountain, Stephen A. Eales, Maarten Baes, Nathan Bourne, Malcolm Bremer, Michael J.I. Brown, Christopher Clark, David Clements, Pieter De Vis, Simon Driver, Loretta Dunne, Simon Dye, Cristina Furlanetto, Benne W. Holwerda, R. J. Ivison, L. S. Kelvin, Maritza Lara-Lopez, Lerothodi Leeuw, Jon Loveday, Steve Maddox, Michal J. Michalowski, Steven Phillipps, Aaron Robotham, Dan Smith, Matthew Smith, Elisabetta Valiante, Paul Van Der Werf, Angus Wright Nov 2018

The Causes Of The Red Sequence, The Blue Cloud, The Green Valley, And The Green Mountain, Stephen A. Eales, Maarten Baes, Nathan Bourne, Malcolm Bremer, Michael J.I. Brown, Christopher Clark, David Clements, Pieter De Vis, Simon Driver, Loretta Dunne, Simon Dye, Cristina Furlanetto, Benne W. Holwerda, R. J. Ivison, L. S. Kelvin, Maritza Lara-Lopez, Lerothodi Leeuw, Jon Loveday, Steve Maddox, Michal J. Michalowski, Steven Phillipps, Aaron Robotham, Dan Smith, Matthew Smith, Elisabetta Valiante, Paul Van Der Werf, Angus Wright

Faculty Scholarship

The galaxies found in optical surveys fall in two distinct regions of a diagram of optical colour versus absolute magnitude: the red sequence and the blue cloud, with the green valley in between. We show that the galaxies found in a submillimetre survey have almost the opposite distribution in this diagram, forming a 'green mountain'. We show that these distinctive distributions follow naturally from a single, continuous, curved Galaxy Sequence in a diagram of specific star formation rate versus stellar mass, without there being the need for a separate star-forming galaxy main sequence and region of passive galaxies. The cause …

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Deep Extragalactic Visible Legacy Survey (Devils): Motivation, Design, And Target Catalogue, L. J.M. Davies, A. S.G. Robotham, S. P. Driver, C. P. Lagos, L. Cortese, E. Mannering, C. Foster, C. Lidman, A. Hashemizadeh, S. Koushan, S. O'Toole, I. K. Baldry, M. Bilicki, J. Bland-Hawthorn, M. N. Bremer, M. J.I. Brown, J. J. Bryant, B. Catinella, S. M. Croom, M. W. Grootes, Benne W. Holwerda, M. J. Jarvis, N. Maddox, M. Meyer, A. J. Moffett, S. Phillipps, E. N. Taylor, R. A. Windhorst, C. Wolf Oct 2018

Deep Extragalactic Visible Legacy Survey (Devils): Motivation, Design, And Target Catalogue, L. J.M. Davies, A. S.G. Robotham, S. P. Driver, C. P. Lagos, L. Cortese, E. Mannering, C. Foster, C. Lidman, A. Hashemizadeh, S. Koushan, S. O'Toole, I. K. Baldry, M. Bilicki, J. Bland-Hawthorn, M. N. Bremer, M. J.I. Brown, J. J. Bryant, B. Catinella, S. M. Croom, M. W. Grootes, Benne W. Holwerda, M. J. Jarvis, N. Maddox, M. Meyer, A. J. Moffett, S. Phillipps, E. N. Taylor, R. A. Windhorst, C. Wolf

Faculty Scholarship

The Deep Extragalactic VIsible Legacy Survey (DEVILS) is a large spectroscopic campaign at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) aimed at bridging the near and distant Universe by producing the highest completeness survey of galaxies and groups at intermediate redshifts (0.3 < z < 1.0). Our sample consists of ~60 000 galaxies to Y < 21.2mag, over ~6 deg2 in threewell-studied deep extragalactic fields (Cosmic Origins Survey field, COSMOS; Extended Chandra Deep Field South, ECDFS; and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission Large-Scale Structure region, XMM-LSS - all Large Synoptic Survey Telescope deep-drill fields). This paper presents the broad experimental design of DEVILS. Our target sample has been selected from deep Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) Y-band imaging (VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations, VIDEO and UltraVISTA), with photometry measured by PROFOUND. Photometric star/galaxy separation is done on the basis of near-infrared colours and has been validated by visual inspection. To maximize our observing efficiency for faint targets, we employ a redshift feedback strategy, which continually updates our target lists, feeding back the results from the previous night's observations. We also present an overview of the initial spectroscopic observations undertaken in late 2017 and early 2018.

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Origins Of Ultradiffuse Galaxies In The Coma Cluster – Ii. Constraints From Their Stellar Populations, Anna Ferre-Mateu, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Viraj Pandya, Ignacio Mart´In-Navarro, Sabine Bellstedt, Asher Wasserman, Maria Stone, Nobuhiro Okabe Oct 2018

Origins Of Ultradiffuse Galaxies In The Coma Cluster – Ii. Constraints From Their Stellar Populations, Anna Ferre-Mateu, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Viraj Pandya, Ignacio Mart´In-Navarro, Sabine Bellstedt, Asher Wasserman, Maria Stone, Nobuhiro Okabe

Faculty Publications

In this second paper of the series we study, with new Keck/DEIMOS spectra, the stellar populations of seven spectroscopically confirmed ultradiffuse galaxies (UDGs) in the Coma cluster. We find intermediate to old ages (∼7 Gyr), low metallicities ([Z/H] ∼ −0.7 dex) and mostly supersolar abundance patterns ([Mg/Fe] ∼ 0.13 dex). These properties are similar to those of low-luminosity (dwarf) galaxies inhabiting the same area in the cluster and are mostly consistent with being the continuity of the stellar mass scaling relations of more massive galaxies. These UDGs’ star formation histories imply a relatively recent infall into the Coma cluster, consistent …

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Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): The Environmental Dependence Of The Galaxy Main Sequence, L. Wang, P. Norberg, S. Brough, M. J.I. Brown, E. Da Cunha, L. J. Davies, S. P. Driver, Benne W. Holwerda, A. M. Hopkins, M. A. Lara-Lopez, J. Liske, J. Loveday, M. W. Grootes, C. C. Popescu, A. H. Wright Oct 2018

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): The Environmental Dependence Of The Galaxy Main Sequence, L. Wang, P. Norberg, S. Brough, M. J.I. Brown, E. Da Cunha, L. J. Davies, S. P. Driver, Benne W. Holwerda, A. M. Hopkins, M. A. Lara-Lopez, J. Liske, J. Loveday, M. W. Grootes, C. C. Popescu, A. H. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

Aims: We aim to investigate if the environment (characterised by the host dark matter halo mass) plays any role in shaping the galaxy star formation main sequence (MS). Methods: The Galaxy and Mass Assembly project (GAMA) combines a spectroscopic survey with photometric information in 21 bands from the far-ultraviolet (FUV) to the far-infrared (FIR). Stellar masses and dust-corrected star-formation rates (SFR) are derived from spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling using MAGPHYS. We use the GAMA galaxy group catalogue to examine the variation of the fraction of star-forming galaxies (SFG) and properties of the MS with respect to the environment. Results: …

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Origins Of Ultradiffuse Galaxies In The Coma Cluster – I. Constraints From Velocity Phase Space, Adebusola Alabi, Anna Ferré-Mateu, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Duncan Forbes, Asher Wasserman, Sabine Bellstedt, Ignacio Martín-Navarro, Viraj Pandya, Maria Stone, Nobuhiro Okabe Sep 2018

Origins Of Ultradiffuse Galaxies In The Coma Cluster – I. Constraints From Velocity Phase Space, Adebusola Alabi, Anna Ferré-Mateu, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Duncan Forbes, Asher Wasserman, Sabine Bellstedt, Ignacio Martín-Navarro, Viraj Pandya, Maria Stone, Nobuhiro Okabe

Faculty Publications

We use Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy to confirm the cluster membership of 16 ultradiffuse galaxies (UDGs) in the Coma cluster, bringing the total number of spectroscopically confirmed UDGs from the Yagi et al. (Y16) catalogue to 25. We also identify a new cluster background UDG, confirming that most (∼95 per cent) of the UDGs in the Y16 catalogue belong to the Coma cluster. In this pilot study of Coma UDGs in velocity phase space, we find evidence of a diverse origin for Coma cluster UDGs, similar to normal dwarf galaxies. Some UDGs in our sample are consistent with being late infalls into …

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The Distance Of The Dark Matter Deficient Galaxy Ngc 1052–Df2, Pieter Van Dokkum, Shany Danieli, Yotam Cohen, Aaron Romanowsky, Charlie Conroy Aug 2018

The Distance Of The Dark Matter Deficient Galaxy Ngc 1052–Df2, Pieter Van Dokkum, Shany Danieli, Yotam Cohen, Aaron Romanowsky, Charlie Conroy

Faculty Publications

We recently inferred that the galaxy NGC 1052–DF2 has little or no dark matter and a rich system of unusual globular clusters. We assumed that the galaxy is a satellite of the luminous elliptical galaxy NGC 1052 at ≈20 Mpc, on the basis of its surface brightness fluctuations (SBFs) distance of 19.0 ± 1.7 Mpc, its radial velocity of ≈1800 km s−1, and its projected position. Here we analyze the color–magnitude diagram (CMD) of NGC 1052–DF2, following the suggestion by Trujillo et al. that the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) can be detected in currently available Hubble Space …

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A 3.5 Million Solar Masses Black Hole In The Centre Of The Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxy Fornax Ucd3, Anton Afanasiev, Igor Chilingarian, Steffen Mieske, Karina Voggel, Arianna Picotti, Michael Hilker, Anil Seth, Nadine Neumayer, Matthias Frank, Aaron Romanowsky, George Hau, Holger Baumgardt, Christopher Ahn, Jay Strader, Mark Den Brok, Richard Mcdermid, Lee Spitler, Jean Brodie, Jonelle Walsh Jul 2018

A 3.5 Million Solar Masses Black Hole In The Centre Of The Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxy Fornax Ucd3, Anton Afanasiev, Igor Chilingarian, Steffen Mieske, Karina Voggel, Arianna Picotti, Michael Hilker, Anil Seth, Nadine Neumayer, Matthias Frank, Aaron Romanowsky, George Hau, Holger Baumgardt, Christopher Ahn, Jay Strader, Mark Den Brok, Richard Mcdermid, Lee Spitler, Jean Brodie, Jonelle Walsh

Faculty Publications

The origin of ultracompact dwarfs (UCDs), a class of compact stellar systems discovered two decades ago, still remains a matter of debate. Recent discoveries of central supermassive black holes in UCDs likely inherited from their massive progenitor galaxies provide support for the tidal stripping hypothesis. At the same time, on statistical grounds, some massive UCDs might be representatives of the high luminosity tail of the globular cluster luminosity function. Here we present a detection of a 3.3+1.4−1.2×106M⊙ black hole (1σ uncertainty) in the centre of the UCD3 galaxy in the Fornax cluster, which corresponds to 4 per cent of its …

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The Sluggs Survey: A Comparison Of Total-Mass Profiles Of Early-Type Galaxies From Observations And Cosmological Simulations, To ∼4 Effective Radii, Sabine Bellstedt, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Rhea-Silvia Remus, Adam Stevens, Jean Brodie, Adriano Poci, Richard Mcdermid, Adebusola Alabi, Leonie Chevalier, Caitlin Adams, Anna Ferré-Mateu, Asher Wasserman, Viraj Pandya Jun 2018

The Sluggs Survey: A Comparison Of Total-Mass Profiles Of Early-Type Galaxies From Observations And Cosmological Simulations, To ∼4 Effective Radii, Sabine Bellstedt, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Rhea-Silvia Remus, Adam Stevens, Jean Brodie, Adriano Poci, Richard Mcdermid, Adebusola Alabi, Leonie Chevalier, Caitlin Adams, Anna Ferré-Mateu, Asher Wasserman, Viraj Pandya

Faculty Publications

We apply the Jeans Anisotropic Multi-Gaussian Expansion dynamical modelling method to SAGES Legacy Unifying Globulars and GalaxieS (SLUGGS) survey data of early-type galaxies in the stellar mass range 1010 < M*/M⊙ < 1011.6 that cover a large radial range of 0.1–4.0 effective radii. We combine SLUGGS and ATLAS3D data sets to model the total-mass profiles of a sample of 21 fast-rotator galaxies, utilizing a hyperparameter method to combine the two independent data sets. The total-mass density profile slope values derived for these galaxies are consistent with those measured in the inner regions of galaxies by other studies. Furthermore, the total-mass density slopes (γtot) appear to be universal over this broad stellar mass range, with an average value of γtot =  −2.24 ±  0.05 , i.e. slightly steeper than isothermal. We compare our results to model galaxies from the Magneticum and EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, in order to probe the mechanisms that are responsible for varying total-mass density profile slopes. The simulated-galaxy slopes are shallower than the observed values by ∼0.3–0.5, indicating that the physical processes shaping the mass distributions of galaxies in cosmological simulations are still incomplete. For galaxies with M* > 1010.7 M⊙ in the Magneticum simulations, we identify a significant anticorrelation between total-mass density profile slopes and the fraction of stellar mass formed ex situ (i.e. accreted), whereas this anticorrelation is weaker for lower stellar masses, implying that the measured total-mass density slopes for low-mass galaxies are less likely to be determined by merger activity.

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Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Morphological Transformation Of Galaxies Across The Green Valley, M. N. Bremer, S. Phillipps, S. Kelvin, R. De Propris, Rebecca Kennedy, Amanda J. Moffett, S. Bamford, L. J.M. Davies, S. P. Driver, B. Häußler, Benne W. Holwerda, A. Hopkins, P. A. James, J. Liske, S. Percival, N. Taylor May 2018

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Morphological Transformation Of Galaxies Across The Green Valley, M. N. Bremer, S. Phillipps, S. Kelvin, R. De Propris, Rebecca Kennedy, Amanda J. Moffett, S. Bamford, L. J.M. Davies, S. P. Driver, B. Häußler, Benne W. Holwerda, A. Hopkins, P. A. James, J. Liske, S. Percival, N. Taylor

Faculty Scholarship

We explore constraints on the joint photometric and morphological evolution of typical low redshift galaxies as they move from the blue cloud through the green valley and on to the red sequence. We select Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey galaxies with 10.25 < log(M*/Mo˙) < 10.75 and z < 0.2 classified according to their intrinsic u* - r* colour. From single component Śersic fits, we find that the stellar mass-sensitive K-band profiles of red and green galaxy populations are very similar while g-band profiles indicate more disc-like morphologies for the green galaxies: apparent (optical) morphological differences arise primarily from radial mass-to-light ratio variations. Two-component fits show that most green galaxies have significant bulge and disc components and that the blue to red evolution is driven by colour change in the disc. Together, these strongly suggest that galaxies evolve from blue to red through secular disc fading and that a strong bulge is present prior to any decline in star formation. The relative abundance of the green population implies a typical time-scale for traversing the green valley ~1-2 Gyr and is independent of environment, unlike that of the red and blue populations. While environment likely plays a role in triggering the passage across the green valley, it appears to have little effect on time taken. These results are consistent with a green valley population dominated by (early type) disc galaxies that are insufficiently supplied with gas to maintain previous levels of disc star formation, eventually attaining passive colours. No single event is needed to quench their star formation.

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The Stellar Populations Of Two Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies From Optical And Near-Infrared Photometry, Viraj Pandya, Aaron J. Romanowsky, Seppo Laine, Jean Brodie, Benjamin Johnson, William Glaccum, Alexa Villaume, Jean-Charles Cuillandre, Stephen Gwyn, Jessica Krick, Ronald Lasker, Ignacio Martín-Navarro, David Martinez-Delgado, Pieter Van Dokkum Apr 2018

The Stellar Populations Of Two Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies From Optical And Near-Infrared Photometry, Viraj Pandya, Aaron J. Romanowsky, Seppo Laine, Jean Brodie, Benjamin Johnson, William Glaccum, Alexa Villaume, Jean-Charles Cuillandre, Stephen Gwyn, Jessica Krick, Ronald Lasker, Ignacio Martín-Navarro, David Martinez-Delgado, Pieter Van Dokkum

Faculty Publications

We present observational constraints on the stellar populations of two ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) using optical through near-infrared (NIR) spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting. Our analysis is enabled by new Spitzer-IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 μm imaging, archival optical imaging, and the prospectorfully Bayesian SED fitting framework. Our sample contains one field UDG (DGSAT I), one Virgo cluster UDG (VCC 1287), and one Virgo cluster dwarf elliptical for comparison (VCC 1122). We find that the optical–NIR colors of the three galaxies are significantly different from each other. We infer that VCC 1287 has an old (7.7 Gyr) and surprisingly metal-poor …

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Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Blue Spheroids Within 87 Mpc, Smriti Mahajan, Michael J. Drinkwater, S. Driver, A. M. Hopkins, Alister W. Graham, S. Brough, Michael J.I. Brown, Benne W. Holwerda, Matt S. Owers, Kevin A. Pimbblet Mar 2018

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Blue Spheroids Within 87 Mpc, Smriti Mahajan, Michael J. Drinkwater, S. Driver, A. M. Hopkins, Alister W. Graham, S. Brough, Michael J.I. Brown, Benne W. Holwerda, Matt S. Owers, Kevin A. Pimbblet

Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, we test if nearby blue spheroid (BSph) galaxies may become the progenitors of star-forming spiral galaxies or passively evolving elliptical galaxies. Our sample comprises 428 galaxies of various morphologies in the redshift range 0.002 < Ζ < 0.02 (8-87 Mpc) with panchromatic data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly survey. We find that BSph galaxies are structurally (mean effective surface brightness, effective radius) very similar to their passively evolving red counterparts. However, their star formation and other properties such as colour, age, and metallicity are more like star-forming spirals than spheroids (ellipticals and lenticulars). We show that BSph galaxies are statistically distinguishable from other spheroids as well as spirals in the multidimensional space mapped by luminosity-weighted age, metallicity, dust mass, and specific star formation rate. We use HI data to reveal that some of the BSphs are (further) developing their discs, hence their blue colours. They may eventually become spiral galaxies - if sufficient gas accretion occurs - or more likely fade into low-mass red galaxies.

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On The Formation Mechanisms Of Compact Elliptical Galaxies, Anna Ferré-Mateu, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Joachim Janz, Christopher Dixon Jan 2018

On The Formation Mechanisms Of Compact Elliptical Galaxies, Anna Ferré-Mateu, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Joachim Janz, Christopher Dixon

Faculty Publications

In order to investigate the formation mechanisms of the rare compact elliptical (cE) galaxies, we have compiled a sample of 25 cEs with good SDSS spectra, covering a range of stellar masses, sizes and environments. They have been visually classified according to the interaction with their host, representing different evolutionary stages. We have included clearly disrupted galaxies, galaxies that despite not showing signs of interaction are located close to a massive neighbour (thus are good candidates for a stripping process), and cEs with no host nearby. For the latter, tidal stripping is less likely to have happened and instead they …

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Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): The Consistency Of Gama And Wise Derived Mass-To-Light Ratios, T. Kettlety, J. Hesling, S. Phillipps, M. N. Bremer, M. E. Cluver, E. N. Taylor, J. Bland-Hawthorn, S. Brough, R. De Propris, S. P. Driver, Benne W. Holwerda, L. S. Kelvin, W. Sutherland, A. H. Wright Jan 2018

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): The Consistency Of Gama And Wise Derived Mass-To-Light Ratios, T. Kettlety, J. Hesling, S. Phillipps, M. N. Bremer, M. E. Cluver, E. N. Taylor, J. Bland-Hawthorn, S. Brough, R. De Propris, S. P. Driver, Benne W. Holwerda, L. S. Kelvin, W. Sutherland, A. H. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

Recent work has suggested that mid-IR wavelengths are optimal for estimating the mass-to-light ratios of stellar populations and hence the stellar masses of galaxies. We compare stellar masses deduced from spectral energy distribution (SED) models, fitted to multiwavelength optical-NIR photometry, to luminosities derived from WISE photometry in the W1 and W2 bands at 3.6 and 4.5 μmfor non-star forming galaxies. The SED-derived masses for a carefully selected sample of low-redshift (z≤0.15) passive galaxies agree with the prediction from stellar population synthesis models such that M*/LW1 ≃0.6 for all such galaxies, independent of other stellar population parameters. The small scatter between …

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Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): The Mechanisms For Quiescent Galaxy Formation At Z < 1, K. Rowlands, V. Wild, N. Bourne, M. Bremer, S. Brough, S. P. Driver, A. M. Hopkins, M. S. Owers, S. Phillipps, K. Pimbblet, A. E. Sansom, L. Wang, M. Alpaslan, J. Bland-Hawthorn, M. Colless, Benne W. Holwerda, E. N. Taylor Jan 2018

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): The Mechanisms For Quiescent Galaxy Formation At Z < 1, K. Rowlands, V. Wild, N. Bourne, M. Bremer, S. Brough, S. P. Driver, A. M. Hopkins, M. S. Owers, S. Phillipps, K. Pimbblet, A. E. Sansom, L. Wang, M. Alpaslan, J. Bland-Hawthorn, M. Colless, Benne W. Holwerda, E. N. Taylor

Faculty Scholarship

One key problem in astrophysics is understanding how and why galaxies switch off their star formation, building the quiescent population that we observe in the local Universe. From the Galaxy And Mass Assembly and VIsible MultiObject Spectrograph Public Extragalactic Redshift surveys, we use spectroscopic indices to select quiescent and candidate transition galaxies. We identify potentially rapidly transitioning post-starburst (PSB) galaxies and slower transitioning green-valley galaxies. Over the last 8Gyr, the quiescent population has grown more slowly in number density at high masses (M* > 1011M⊙) than at intermediate masses (M* > 1010.6M⊙). There is evolution in both the PSB and green-valley stellar …

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Detection Of A Substantial Molecular Gas Reservoir In A Brightest Cluster Galaxy At Z = 1.7, Tracy M.A. Webb, James Lowenthal, Min Yun, Allison G. Nobel, Adam Muzzin, Gillian Wilson, H.K.C. Yee, Ryan Cybulski, D. H. Hughes Aug 2017

Detection Of A Substantial Molecular Gas Reservoir In A Brightest Cluster Galaxy At Z = 1.7, Tracy M.A. Webb, James Lowenthal, Min Yun, Allison G. Nobel, Adam Muzzin, Gillian Wilson, H.K.C. Yee, Ryan Cybulski, D. H. Hughes

Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We report the detection of CO(2–1) emission coincident with the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) of the high- redshift galaxy cluster SpARCS1049+56, with the Redshift Search Receiver (RSR) on the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT). We confirm a spectroscopic redshift for the gas of z = 1.7091 ± 0.0004, which is consistent with the systemic redshift of the cluster galaxies of z = 1.709. The line is well fit by a single-component Gaussian with an RSR-resolution-corrected FWHM of 569 ± 63kms−1. We see no evidence for multiple velocity components in the gas, as might be expected from the multiple image components seen …

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The Sluggs Survey: Dark Matter Fractions At Large Radii And Assembly Epochs Of Early-Type Galaxies From Globular Cluster Kinematics, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Jay Strader, Joachim Janz, Christopher Usher, Lee Spitler, Sabine Bellstedt, Anna Ferré-Mateu Jul 2017

The Sluggs Survey: Dark Matter Fractions At Large Radii And Assembly Epochs Of Early-Type Galaxies From Globular Cluster Kinematics, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Jay Strader, Joachim Janz, Christopher Usher, Lee Spitler, Sabine Bellstedt, Anna Ferré-Mateu

Faculty Publications

We use globular cluster kinematics data, primarily from the SAGES Legacy Unifying Globulars and GalaxieS (SLUGGS) survey, to measure the dark matter fraction (fDM) and the average dark matter density (〈ρDM〉) within the inner 5 effective radii (Re) for 32 nearby early-type galaxies (ETGs) with stellar mass log (M*/M⊙) ranging from 10.1 to 11.8. We compare our results with a simple galaxy model based on scaling relations as well as with cosmological hydrodynamical simulations where the dark matter profile has been modified through various physical processes. We find a high fDM (≥0.6) within 5 Re in most of our sample, …

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The Sluggs Survey: Using Extended Stellar Kinematics To Disentangle The Formation Histories Of Low-Mass S0 Galaxies, Sabine Bellstedt, Duncan Forbes, Caroline Foster, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Nicola Pastorello, Adebusola Alabi, Alexa Villaume Jun 2017

The Sluggs Survey: Using Extended Stellar Kinematics To Disentangle The Formation Histories Of Low-Mass S0 Galaxies, Sabine Bellstedt, Duncan Forbes, Caroline Foster, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Nicola Pastorello, Adebusola Alabi, Alexa Villaume

Faculty Publications

We utilize the DEIMOS instrument on the Keck telescope to measure the wide-field stellar kinematics of early-type galaxies as part of the SAGES Legacy Unifying Globulars and GalaxieS (SLUGGS) survey. In this paper, we focus on some of the lowest stellar mass lenticular galaxies within this survey, namely NGC 2549, NGC 4474, NGC 4459 and NGC 7457, performing detailed kinematic analyses out to large radial distances of ∼2–3 effective radii. For NGC 2549, we present the first analysis of data taken with the SuperSKiMS (Stellar Kinematics from Multiple Slits) technique. To better probe kinematic variations in the outskirts of the …

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The Stellar Initial Mass Function In Early-Type Galaxies From Absorption Line Spectroscopy. Iii. Radial Gradients, Pieter Van Dokkum, Charlie Conroy, Alexa Villaume, Jean Brodie, Aaron Romanowsky May 2017

The Stellar Initial Mass Function In Early-Type Galaxies From Absorption Line Spectroscopy. Iii. Radial Gradients, Pieter Van Dokkum, Charlie Conroy, Alexa Villaume, Jean Brodie, Aaron Romanowsky

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

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A Direct Comparison Of Lyman-Alpha And Neutral Hydrogen Morphologies, Kathleen Fitzgibbon, John M. Cannon May 2017

A Direct Comparison Of Lyman-Alpha And Neutral Hydrogen Morphologies, Kathleen Fitzgibbon, John M. Cannon

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

The Lyman-Alpha Reference Sample (LARS) and its extension (eLARS) represent an exhaustive campaign to reverse-engineer galaxies. The main goal is to understand how \lya radiation is transported within galaxies: what fraction of it escapes, and what physical properties affect the \lya morphology and radiative transport (e.g., dust and gas content, metallicity, kinematics, properties of the producing and underlying stellar populations). Two galaxies from the sample, LARS02 and LARS09, were observed using the B and C configurations of the Very Large Array to examine the neutral hydrogen emission, which can be used to determine a galaxy's neutral hydrogen (HI) structure and …

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Detection Of Supermassive Black Holes In Two Virgo Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxies, Christopher Ahn, Anil Seth, Mark Den Brok, Jay Strader, Holger Baumgardt, Remco Van Den Bosch, Igor Chilingarian, Matthias Frank, Michael Hilker, Richard Mcdermid, Steffen Mieske, Aaron Romanowsky, Lee Spitler, Jean Brodie, Nadine Neumayer, Jonelle Walsh Apr 2017

Detection Of Supermassive Black Holes In Two Virgo Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxies, Christopher Ahn, Anil Seth, Mark Den Brok, Jay Strader, Holger Baumgardt, Remco Van Den Bosch, Igor Chilingarian, Matthias Frank, Michael Hilker, Richard Mcdermid, Steffen Mieske, Aaron Romanowsky, Lee Spitler, Jean Brodie, Nadine Neumayer, Jonelle Walsh

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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Early Science With The Large Millimeter Telescope: Detection Of Dust Emission In Multiple Images Of A Normal Galaxy At Z > 4 Lensed By A Frontier Fields Cluster, Alexandra Pope, Alfredo Montaña, Andrew Battisti, Marceau Limousin, Danilo Marchesini, Grant W. Wilson, Stacy Alberts, Itziar Aretxaga, Vladimir Avila-Reese, José Ramón Bermejo-Climent, Gabriel Brammer, Hector Bravo-Alfaro, Daniela Calzetti, Ranga-Ram Chary, Ryan Cybulski, Mauro Giavalisco, David Hughes, Erin Kado-Fong, Erica Keller, Allison Kirkpatrick, Ivo Labbe, Daniel Lange-Vagle, James Lowenthal, Eric Murphy, Pascal Oesch, Daniel Rosa Gonzalez, David Sánchez-Argüelles, Heath Shipley, Mauro Stefanon, Olga Vega, Katherine Whitaker, Christina C. Williams, Min Yun, Jorge A. Zavala, Milagros Zeballos Apr 2017

Early Science With The Large Millimeter Telescope: Detection Of Dust Emission In Multiple Images Of A Normal Galaxy At Z > 4 Lensed By A Frontier Fields Cluster, Alexandra Pope, Alfredo Montaña, Andrew Battisti, Marceau Limousin, Danilo Marchesini, Grant W. Wilson, Stacy Alberts, Itziar Aretxaga, Vladimir Avila-Reese, José Ramón Bermejo-Climent, Gabriel Brammer, Hector Bravo-Alfaro, Daniela Calzetti, Ranga-Ram Chary, Ryan Cybulski, Mauro Giavalisco, David Hughes, Erin Kado-Fong, Erica Keller, Allison Kirkpatrick, Ivo Labbe, Daniel Lange-Vagle, James Lowenthal, Eric Murphy, Pascal Oesch, Daniel Rosa Gonzalez, David Sánchez-Argüelles, Heath Shipley, Mauro Stefanon, Olga Vega, Katherine Whitaker, Christina C. Williams, Min Yun, Jorge A. Zavala, Milagros Zeballos

Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We directly detect dust emission in an optically detected, multiply imaged galaxy lensed by the Frontier Fields cluster MACSJ0717.5+3745. We detect two images of the same galaxy at 1.1 mm with the AzTEC camera on the Large Millimeter Telescope leaving no ambiguity in the counterpart identification. This galaxy, MACS0717_Az9, is at z > 4 and the strong lensing model (μ=7.5) allows us to calculate an intrinsic IR luminosity of 9.7 × 1010 Le and an obscured star formation rate of 14.6 ± 4.5 Me yr−1. The unobscured star formation rate from the UV is only 4.1 ± 0.3 Me yr−1, which …

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On The Redshift Distribution And Physical Properties Of Act-Selected Dsfgs, T. Su, T. A. Marriage, V. Asboth, A. J. Baker, J. R. Bond, D. Crichton, M. J. Devlin, R. Dünner, D. Farrah, D. T. Frayer, M. B. Gralla, K. Hall, M. Halpern, A. I. Harris, M. Hilton, A. D. Hincks, J. P. Hughes, M. D. Niemack, L. A. Page, B. Partridge, J. Rivera, D. Scott, J. L. Sievers, Robert J. Thornton, M. P. Viero, L. Wang, E. J. Wollack, M. Zemcov Mar 2017

On The Redshift Distribution And Physical Properties Of Act-Selected Dsfgs, T. Su, T. A. Marriage, V. Asboth, A. J. Baker, J. R. Bond, D. Crichton, M. J. Devlin, R. Dünner, D. Farrah, D. T. Frayer, M. B. Gralla, K. Hall, M. Halpern, A. I. Harris, M. Hilton, A. D. Hincks, J. P. Hughes, M. D. Niemack, L. A. Page, B. Partridge, J. Rivera, D. Scott, J. L. Sievers, Robert J. Thornton, M. P. Viero, L. Wang, E. J. Wollack, M. Zemcov

Robert Thornton

No abstract provided.

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The Brightest Of Reionizing Galaxies Survey : Constraints On The Bright End Of The Z ~ 8 Luminosity Function., L. D. Bradley, M. Trenti, P. A. Oesch, M. Stiavelli, T. Treu, R. J. Bouwens, J. M. Shull, Benne W. Holwerda, N. Pirzkal Mar 2017

The Brightest Of Reionizing Galaxies Survey : Constraints On The Bright End Of The Z ~ 8 Luminosity Function., L. D. Bradley, M. Trenti, P. A. Oesch, M. Stiavelli, T. Treu, R. J. Bouwens, J. M. Shull, Benne W. Holwerda, N. Pirzkal

Benne Holwerda

We report the discovery of 33 Lyman-break galaxy candidates at z ∼ 8 detected in Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) imaging as part of the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG) pure-parallel survey. The ongoing BoRG survey currently has the largest area (274 arcmin2) with Y098 (or Y105), J125, and H160 band coverage needed to search for z ∼ 8 galaxies, about three times the current CANDELS area, and slightly larger than what will be the final CANDELS wide component with Y105 data (required to select z ∼ 8 sources). Our sample of 33 relatively bright Y098-dropout galaxies …

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Evolution In The Dust Lane Fraction Of Edge-On L*V Spiral Galaxies Since Z = 0.8., Benne W. Holwerda, J. J. Dalcanton, D. Radburn-Smith, R. S. De Jong, P. Guhathakurta, A. Koekemoer, R. J. Allen, T. Boker Mar 2017

Evolution In The Dust Lane Fraction Of Edge-On L*V Spiral Galaxies Since Z = 0.8., Benne W. Holwerda, J. J. Dalcanton, D. Radburn-Smith, R. S. De Jong, P. Guhathakurta, A. Koekemoer, R. J. Allen, T. Boker

Benne Holwerda

The presence of a well-defined and narrow dust lane in an edge-on spiral galaxy is the observational signature of a thin and dense molecular disk, in which gravitational collapse has overcome turbulence. Using a sample of galaxies out to z ∼ 1 extracted from the COSMOS survey, we identify the fraction of massive (L∗ V ) disks that display a dust lane. Our goal is to explore the evolution in the stability of the molecular interstellar medium (ISM) disks in spiral galaxies over a cosmic timescale. We check the reliability of our morphological classifications against changes in rest-frame wavelength, resolution, …

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Outer-Disk Populations In Ngc 7793 : Evidence For Stellar Radial Migration., David J. Radburn-Smith, Rok Roskar, Victor P. Debattista, Julianne J. Dalcanton, David Streich, Roelof S. De Jong, Marija Vlajic, Benne W. Holwerda, Chris W. Purcell, Andrew E. Dolphin, Daniel B. Zucker Mar 2017

Outer-Disk Populations In Ngc 7793 : Evidence For Stellar Radial Migration., David J. Radburn-Smith, Rok Roskar, Victor P. Debattista, Julianne J. Dalcanton, David Streich, Roelof S. De Jong, Marija Vlajic, Benne W. Holwerda, Chris W. Purcell, Andrew E. Dolphin, Daniel B. Zucker

Benne Holwerda

We analyzed the radial surface brightness profile of the spiral galaxy NGC 7793 using HST/ACS images from the GHOSTS survey and a new HST/WFC3 image across the disk break. We used the photometry of resolved stars to select distinct populations covering a wide range of stellar ages. We found breaks in the radial profiles of all stellar populations at 280 (∼5.1 kpc). Beyond this disk break, the profiles become steeper for younger populations. This same trend is seen in numerical simulations where the outer disk is formed almost entirely by radial migration. We also found that the older stars of …

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