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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

The Loneliest Galaxies In The Universe: A Gama And Galaxy Zoo Study On Void Galaxy Morphology, Lori E. Porter, Benne Holwerda, Sandor Kruk, Maritza Lara-López, Kevin A. Pimbblet, Christopher P A Henry, Sarah Casura, Lee S. Kelvin Jul 2023

The Loneliest Galaxies In The Universe: A Gama And Galaxy Zoo Study On Void Galaxy Morphology, Lori E. Porter, Benne Holwerda, Sandor Kruk, Maritza Lara-López, Kevin A. Pimbblet, Christopher P A Henry, Sarah Casura, Lee S. Kelvin

Faculty Scholarship

The large-scale structure of the Universe is comprised of galaxy filaments, tendrils, and voids. The majority of the Universe’s volume is taken up by these voids, which exist as underdense, but not empty, regions. The galaxies found inside these voids are expected to be some of the most isolated objects in the Universe. This study, using the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) and Galaxy Zoo surveys, aims to investigate basic physical properties and morphology of void galaxies versus field (filament and tendril) galaxies. We use void galaxies with stellar masses (⁠M∗" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; …


Gama/Devils: Cosmic Star Formation And Agn Activity Over 12.5 Billion Years, Jordan C J D’Silva, Simon P. Driver, Claudia D P Lagos, Aaron S G Robotham, Sabine Bellstedt, Luke J M Davies, Jessica E. Thorne, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Matias Bravo, Benne Holwerda, Steven Phillipps, Nick Seymour, Malgorzata Siudek, Rogier A. Windhorst Jul 2023

Gama/Devils: Cosmic Star Formation And Agn Activity Over 12.5 Billion Years, Jordan C J D’Silva, Simon P. Driver, Claudia D P Lagos, Aaron S G Robotham, Sabine Bellstedt, Luke J M Davies, Jessica E. Thorne, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Matias Bravo, Benne Holwerda, Steven Phillipps, Nick Seymour, Malgorzata Siudek, Rogier A. Windhorst

Faculty Scholarship

We use the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) and the Deep Extragalactic Visible Legacy Survey (DEVILS) observational data sets to calculate the cosmic star formation rate (SFR) and active galactic nuclei (AGN) bolometric luminosity history (CSFH/CAGNH) over the last 12.5 billion years. SFRs and AGN bolometric luminosities were derived using the spectral energy distribution fitting code ProSpect, which includes an AGN prescription to self consistently model the contribution from both AGN and stellar emission to the observed rest-frame ultra-violet to far-infrared photometry. We find that both the CSFH and CAGNH evolve similarly, rising in the early Universe up to a …


Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Comparing Visually And Spectroscopically Identified Galaxy Merger Samples, Alice Desmons, Sarah Brough, Cristina Martínez-Lombilla, Roberto De Propris, Benne Holwerda, Ángel R. López-Sánchez Jun 2023

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): Comparing Visually And Spectroscopically Identified Galaxy Merger Samples, Alice Desmons, Sarah Brough, Cristina Martínez-Lombilla, Roberto De Propris, Benne Holwerda, Ángel R. López-Sánchez

Faculty Scholarship

We conduct a comparison of the merging galaxy populations detected by a sample of visual identification of tidal features around galaxies as well as spectroscopically detected close pairs of galaxies to determine whether our method of selecting merging galaxies biases our understanding of galaxy interactions. Our volume-limited parent sample consists of 852 galaxies from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey in the redshift range 0.04 ≤ z ≤ 0.20 and stellar mass range 9.50 ≤ log 10(M⋆/M⊙)≤ 11.0" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: normal; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; …


Red Riding On Hood: Exploring How Galaxy Colour Depends On Environment, Pankaj C. Bhambhani, Ivan K. Baldry, Sarah Brough, Alexander D. Hill, M A. Lara-Lopez, J Loveday, Benne Holwerda May 2023

Red Riding On Hood: Exploring How Galaxy Colour Depends On Environment, Pankaj C. Bhambhani, Ivan K. Baldry, Sarah Brough, Alexander D. Hill, M A. Lara-Lopez, J Loveday, Benne Holwerda

Faculty Scholarship

Galaxy populations are known to exhibit a strong colour bimodality, corresponding to blue star-forming and red quiescent subpopulations. The relative abundance of the two populations has been found to vary with stellar mass and environment. In this paper, we explore the effect of environment considering different types of measurements. We choose a sample of 49 911 galaxies with 0.05 < z < 0.18 from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey. We study the dependence of the fraction of red galaxies on different measures of the local environment as well as the large-scale `geometric’ environment defined by density gradients in the surrounding cosmic web. We find that the red galaxy fraction varies with the environment at fixed stellar mass. The red fraction depends more strongly on local environmental measures than on large-scale geometric environment measures. By comparing the different environmental densities, we show that no density measurement fully explains the observed environmental red fraction variation, suggesting the different measures of environmental density contain different information. We test whether the local environmental measures, when combined together, can explain all the observed environmental red fraction variation. The geometric environment has a small residual effect, and this effect is larger for voids than any other type of geometric environment. This could provide a test of the physics applied to cosmological-scale galaxy evolution simulations as it combines large-scale effects with local environmental impact.


Modelling Strong Lenses From Wide-Field Ground-Based Observations In Kids And Gama, Shawn Knabel, Benne Holwerda, J Nightingale, T Treu, M Bilicki, S Brough, S Driver, L Finnerty, L Haberzettl, S Hegde, A M. Hopkins, K Kuijken, J Liske, A K. Pimblett, R C. Steele, A H. Wright Jan 2023

Modelling Strong Lenses From Wide-Field Ground-Based Observations In Kids And Gama, Shawn Knabel, Benne Holwerda, J Nightingale, T Treu, M Bilicki, S Brough, S Driver, L Finnerty, L Haberzettl, S Hegde, A M. Hopkins, K Kuijken, J Liske, A K. Pimblett, R C. Steele, A H. Wright

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the success of galaxy-scale strong gravitational lens studies with Hubble-quality imaging, a number of well-studied strong lenses remains small. As a result, robust comparisons of the lens models to theoretical predictions are difficult. This motivates our application of automated Bayesian lens modelling methods to observations from public data releases of overlapping large ground-based imaging and spectroscopic surveys: Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) and Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA), respectively. We use the open-source lens modelling software PYAUTOLENS to perform our analysis. We demonstrate the feasibility of strong lens modelling with large-survey data at lower resolution as a complementary avenue to studies …


Formation Of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies In The Field And In Galaxy Groups, Fangzhou Jiang, Avishai Dekel, Jonathan Freundlich, Aaron Romanowsky, Aaron Dutton, Andrea Macciò, Arianna Di Cintio Aug 2019

Formation Of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies In The Field And In Galaxy Groups, Fangzhou Jiang, Avishai Dekel, Jonathan Freundlich, Aaron Romanowsky, Aaron Dutton, Andrea Macciò, Arianna Di Cintio

Faculty Publications

We study ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in zoom in cosmological simulations, seeking the origin of UDGs in the field versus galaxy groups. We find that while field UDGs arise from dwarfs in a characteristic mass range by multiple episodes of supernova feedback (Di Cintio et al.), group UDGs may also form by tidal puffing up and they become quiescent by ram-pressure stripping. The field and group UDGs share similar properties, independent of distance from the group centre. Their dark-matter haloes have ordinary spin parameters and centrally dominant dark-matter cores. Their stellar components tend to have a prolate shape with a Sérsic …


New Constraints On Early-Type Galaxy Assembly From Spectroscopic Metallicities Of Globular Clusters In M87, Alexa Villaume, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Jay Strader Jul 2019

New Constraints On Early-Type Galaxy Assembly From Spectroscopic Metallicities Of Globular Clusters In M87, Alexa Villaume, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Jay Strader

Faculty Publications

The observed characteristics of globular cluster (GC) systems, such as metallicity distributions, are commonly used to place constraints on galaxy formation models. However, obtaining reliable metallicity values is particularly difficult because of our limited means to obtain high quality spectroscopy of extragalactic GCs. Often, "color–metallicity relations" are invoked to convert easier-to-obtain photometric measurements into metallicities, but there is no consensus on what form these relations should take. In this paper we make use of multiple photometric data sets and iron metallicity values derived from applying full-spectrum stellar population synthesis models to deep Keck/LRIS spectra of 177 GCs centrally located around …


Spatially Resolved Stellar Populations And Kinematics With Kcwi: Probing The Assembly History Of The Massive Early-Type Galaxy Ngc 1407, Anna Ferré-Mateu, Duncan Forbes, Richard Mcdermid, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie Jun 2019

Spatially Resolved Stellar Populations And Kinematics With Kcwi: Probing The Assembly History Of The Massive Early-Type Galaxy Ngc 1407, Anna Ferré-Mateu, Duncan Forbes, Richard Mcdermid, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie

Faculty Publications

Using the newly commissioned Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) instrument on the Keck II telescope, we analyze the stellar kinematics and stellar populations of the well-studied massive early-type galaxy (ETG) NGC 1407. We obtained high signal-to-noise integral field spectra for a central and an outer (around one effective radius toward the southeast direction) pointing with integration times of just 600 s and 2400 s, respectively. We confirm the presence of a kinematically distinct core also revealed by VLT/MUSE data of the central regions. While NGC 1407 was previously found to have stellar populations characteristic of massive ETGs (with radially constant …


Extreme Chemical Abundance Ratio Suggesting An Exotic Origin For An Ultradiffuse Galaxy, Ignacio Martín-Navarro, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Anna Ferr´E-Mateu, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Margarita Sharina, Alexa Villaume, Viraj Pandya, David Martinez-Delgado Apr 2019

Extreme Chemical Abundance Ratio Suggesting An Exotic Origin For An Ultradiffuse Galaxy, Ignacio Martín-Navarro, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Anna Ferr´E-Mateu, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Margarita Sharina, Alexa Villaume, Viraj Pandya, David Martinez-Delgado

Faculty Publications

Ultradiffuse galaxies (UDGs) are a population of extended galaxies but with relatively low luminosities. The origin of these objects remains unclear, largely due to the observational challenges of the low surface brightness Universe. We present here a detailed stellar population analysis of a relatively isolated UDG, DGSAT I, based on spectroscopic data from the Keck Cosmic Web Imager integral field unit. The star formation history of DGSAT I seems to be extended, with a mean luminosity-weighted age of ∼3 Gyr, in agreement with previous photometric studies. However, we find a very high [Mg/Fe] abundance ratio, which is extreme even in …


A Second Galaxy Missing Dark Matter In The Ngc 1052 Group, Pieter Van Dokkum, Shany Danieli, Roberto Abraham, Charlie Conroy, Aaron Romanowsky Mar 2019

A Second Galaxy Missing Dark Matter In The Ngc 1052 Group, Pieter Van Dokkum, Shany Danieli, Roberto Abraham, Charlie Conroy, Aaron Romanowsky

Faculty Publications

The ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC1052-DF2 has a very low velocity dispersion, indicating that it has little or no dark matter. Here we report the discovery of a second galaxy in this class, residing in the same group. NGC1052-DF4closely resembles NGC1052-DF2 in terms of its size, surface brightness, and morphology; has a similar distance of Dsbf = 19.9 +/- 2.8 Mpc; and also has a population of luminous globular clusters extending out to >7 kpc from the center of the galaxy. Accurate radial velocities of the diffuse galaxy light and seven of the globular clusters were obtained with the Low Resolution Imaging …


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 …


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 …


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 …


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 …


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.


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 …


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 …


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, …


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 …


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.


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 …


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.


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.


The Sluggs Survey: Stellar Masses And Effective Radii Of Early-Type Galaxies From Spitzer Space Telescope 3.6 Μm Imaging, Duncan Forbes, Luciana Sinpetru, Giulia Savorgnan, Aaron Romanowsky, Christopher Usher, Jean Brodie Feb 2017

The Sluggs Survey: Stellar Masses And Effective Radii Of Early-Type Galaxies From Spitzer Space Telescope 3.6 Μm Imaging, Duncan Forbes, Luciana Sinpetru, Giulia Savorgnan, Aaron Romanowsky, Christopher Usher, Jean Brodie

Faculty Publications

Galaxy starlight at 3.6 μm is an excellent tracer of stellar mass. Here we use the latest 3.6 μm imaging from the Spitzer Space Telescope to measure the total stellar mass and effective radii in a homogeneous way for a sample of galaxies from the SAGES Legacy Unifying Globulars and GalaxieS (SLUGGS) survey. These galaxies are representative of nearby early-type galaxies in the stellar mass range of 10 < log M*/M⊙ < 11.7 and our methodology can be applied to other samples of early-type galaxies. We model each galaxy in 2D and estimate its total asymptotic magnitude from a 1D curve-of-growth. Magnitudes are converted into stellar masses using a 3.6 μm mass-to-light ratio from the latest stellar population models of Röck et al., assuming a Kroupa initial mass function. We apply a ratio based on each galaxy's mean mass-weighted stellar age within one effective radius (the mass-to-light ratio is insensitive to galaxy metallicity for the generally old stellar ages and high metallicities found in massive early-type galaxies). Our 3.6 μm stellar masses agree well with masses derived from 2.2 μm data. From the 1D surface brightness profile, we fit a single Sérsic law, excluding the very central regions. We measure the effective radius, Sérsic n parameter and effective surface brightness for each galaxy. We find that galaxy sizes derived from shallow optical imaging and the 2MASS survey tend to underestimate the true size of the largest, most massive galaxies in our sample. We adopt the 3.6 μm stellar masses and effective radii for the SLUGGS survey galaxies.


Extensive Globular Cluster Systems Associated With Ultra Diffuse Galaxies In The Coma Cluster, Pieter Van Dokkum, Roberto Abraham, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Charlie Conroy, Shany Danieli, Deborah Lokhors, Allison Merritt, Lamiya Mowla, Jielai Zhang Jan 2017

Extensive Globular Cluster Systems Associated With Ultra Diffuse Galaxies In The Coma Cluster, Pieter Van Dokkum, Roberto Abraham, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Charlie Conroy, Shany Danieli, Deborah Lokhors, Allison Merritt, Lamiya Mowla, Jielai Zhang

Faculty Publications

We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging of two ultra diffuse galaxies (UDGs) with measured stellar velocity dispersions in the Coma cluster. The galaxies, Dragonfly 44 and DFX1, have effective radii of 4.7 kpc and 3.5 kpc and velocity dispersions of km s−1 and km s−1, respectively. Both galaxies are associated with a striking number of compact objects, tentatively identified as globular clusters: for Dragonfly 44 and for DFX1. The number of globular clusters is much higher than expected from the luminosities of the galaxies but is consistent with expectations from the empirical relation between dynamical mass and globular cluster …


The Sluggs Survey: Revisiting The Correlation Between X-Ray Luminosity And Total Mass Of Massive Early-Type Galaxies, Duncan Forbes, Adebusola Alabi, Aaron Romanowsky, Dong-Woo Kim, Jean Brodie, Giuseppina Fabbiano Jan 2017

The Sluggs Survey: Revisiting The Correlation Between X-Ray Luminosity And Total Mass Of Massive Early-Type Galaxies, Duncan Forbes, Adebusola Alabi, Aaron Romanowsky, Dong-Woo Kim, Jean Brodie, Giuseppina Fabbiano

Faculty Publications

Here we utilize recent measures of galaxy total dynamical mass and X-ray gas luminosities (LX,Gas) for a sample of 29 massive early-type galaxies from the SLUGGS survey to probe LX, Gas–mass scaling relations. In particular, we investigate scalings with stellar mass, dynamical mass within 5 effective radii (Re) and total virial mass. We also compare these relations with predictions from Λ cold dark matter simulations. We find a strong linear relationship between LX, Gas and galaxy dynamical mass within 5Re, which is consistent with the recent cosmological simulations of Choi et al. that incorporate mechanical heating from AGN. We conclude …


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 Jan 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

Physics & Engineering Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Metallicity And Age Of The Stellar Stream Around The Disk Galaxy Ngc 5907, Seppo Laine, Carl Grillmair, Peter Capak, Richard Arendt, Aaron Romanowsky, David Martínez-Delgado, Matthew Ashby, James Davies, Stephen Majewski, Jean Brodie, R. Gabany, Jacob Arnold Sep 2016

Metallicity And Age Of The Stellar Stream Around The Disk Galaxy Ngc 5907, Seppo Laine, Carl Grillmair, Peter Capak, Richard Arendt, Aaron Romanowsky, David Martínez-Delgado, Matthew Ashby, James Davies, Stephen Majewski, Jean Brodie, R. Gabany, Jacob Arnold

Faculty Publications

Stellar streams have become central to studies of the interaction histories of nearby galaxies. To characterize the most prominent parts of the stellar stream around the well-known nearby (d = 17 Mpc) edge-on disk galaxy NGC 5907, we have obtained and analyzed new, deep gri Subaru/Suprime-Cam and 3.6 μm Spitzer/Infrared Array Camera observations. Combining the near-infrared 3.6 μm data with visible-light images allows us to use a long wavelength baseline to estimate the metallicity and age of the stellar population along an ~60 kpc long segment of the stream. We have fitted the stellar spectral energy distribution with a single-burst …


The Sluggs Survey: The Mass Distribution In Early-Type Galaxies Within Five Effective Radii And Beyond, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Jay Strader, Joachim Janz, Vincenzo Pota, Nicola Pastorello, Christopher Usher, Lee Spitler, Caroline Foster, Zachary Jennings, Alexa Villaume, Sreeja Kartha Aug 2016

The Sluggs Survey: The Mass Distribution In Early-Type Galaxies Within Five Effective Radii And Beyond, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Jay Strader, Joachim Janz, Vincenzo Pota, Nicola Pastorello, Christopher Usher, Lee Spitler, Caroline Foster, Zachary Jennings, Alexa Villaume, Sreeja Kartha

Faculty Publications

We study mass distributions within and beyond 5 effective radii (Re) in 23 early-type galaxies from the SAGES Legacy Unifying Globulars and Galaxies Survey, using their globular cluster (GC) kinematic data. The data are obtained with Keck/DEep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph, and consist of line-of-sight velocities for ∼3500 GCs, measured with a high precision of ∼15 km s−1 per GC and extending out to ∼13 Re. We obtain the mass distribution in each galaxy using the tracer mass estimator of Watkins et al. and account for kinematic substructures, rotation of the GC systems and galaxy flattening in our mass estimates. The …


The Sluggs Survey: Globular Clusters And The Dark Matter Content Of Early-Type Galaxies, Duncan Forbes, Adebusola Alabi, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Jay Strader, Christopher Usher, Vincenzo Pota May 2016

The Sluggs Survey: Globular Clusters And The Dark Matter Content Of Early-Type Galaxies, Duncan Forbes, Adebusola Alabi, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Jay Strader, Christopher Usher, Vincenzo Pota

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.