scholarly journals Star formation and gas in the minor merger UGC 10214

2019 ◽  
Vol 623 ◽  
pp. A154
Author(s):  
D. Rosado-Belza ◽  
U. Lisenfeld ◽  
J. Hibbard ◽  
K. Kniermann ◽  
J. Ott ◽  
...  

Minor mergers play a crucial role in galaxy evolution. UGC 10214 (the Tadpole galaxy) is a prime example of this process in which a dwarf galaxy has interacted with a large spiral galaxy ∼250 Myr ago and produced a perturbed disc and a giant tidal tail. We used a multi-wavelength dataset that partly consists of new observations (Hα, HI, and CO) and partly of archival data to study the present and past star formation rate (SFR) and its relation to the gas and stellar mass at a spatial resolution down to 4 kpc. UGC 10214 is a high-mass (stellar mass M⋆ = 1.28 × 1011 M⊙) galaxy with a low gas fraction (Mgas/M⋆ = 0.24), a high molecular gas fraction (MH2/MHI = 0.4), and a modest SFR (2–5 M⊙ yr−1). The global SFR compared to its stellar mass places UGC 10214 on the galaxy main sequence (MS). The comparison of the molecular gas mass and current SFR gives a molecular gas depletion time of about ∼2 Gyr (based on Hα), comparable to those of normal spiral galaxies. Both from a comparison of the Hα emission, tracing the current SFR, and far-ultraviolet (FUV) emission, tracing the recent SFR during the past tens of Myr, and also from spectral energy distribution fitting with CIGALE, we find that the SFR has increased by a factor of about 2–3 during the recent past. This increase is particularly noticeable in the centre of the galaxy where a pronounced peak of the Hα emission is visible. A pixel-to-pixel comparison of the SFR, molecular gas mass, and stellar mass shows that the central region has had a depressed FUV-traced SFR compared to the molecular gas and the stellar mass, whereas the Hα-traced SFR shows a normal level. The atomic and molecular gas distribution is asymmetric, but the position-velocity diagram along the major axis shows a pattern of regular rotation. We conclude that the minor merger has most likely caused variations in the SFR in the past that resulted in a moderate increase of the SFR, but it has not perturbed the gas significantly so that the molecular depletion time remains normal.

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S341) ◽  
pp. 119-123
Author(s):  
Dian Triani ◽  
Darren Croton ◽  
Manodeep Sinha

AbstractWe build a theoretical picture of how the light from galaxies evolves across cosmic time. In particular, we predict the evolution of the galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) by carefully integrating the star formation and metal enrichment histories of semi-analytic model (SAM) galaxies and combining these with stellar population synthesis models which we call mentari. Our SAM combines prescriptions to model the interplay between gas accretion, star formation, feedback process, and chemical enrichment in galaxy evolution. From this, the SED of any simulated galaxy at any point in its history can be constructed and compared with telescope data to reverse engineer the various physical processes that may have led to a particular set of observations. The synthetic SEDs of millions of simulated galaxies from mentari can cover wavelengths from the far UV to infrared, and thus can tell a near complete story of the history of galaxy evolution.


2018 ◽  
Vol 618 ◽  
pp. A31 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. A. Masoura ◽  
G. Mountrichas ◽  
I. Georgantopoulos ◽  
A. Ruiz ◽  
G. Magdis ◽  
...  

There is growing evidence supporting the coeval growth of galaxies and their resident super-massive black hole (SMBH). Most studies also claim a correlation between the activity of the SMBH and the star formation of the host galaxy. It is unclear, however, whether this correlation extends to all redshifts and X-ray luminosities. Some studies find a weaker dependence at lower luminosities and/or a suppression of the star formation at high luminosities. We here use data from the X-ATLAS and XMM-XXL North fields and compile the largest X-ray sample up to date to investigate how X-ray selected AGN affect the star formation of their host galaxies in a wide redshift and luminosity baseline of 0.03 < z < 3 and log LX(2−10 keV) = (41−45.5) erg s−1. Our sample consists of 3336 AGN. 1872 of our sources have spectroscopic redshifts. For the remaining sources we calculate photometric redshifts using TPZ, a machine-learning algorithm. We estimate stellar masses (M⋆) and star formation rates (SFRs) by applying spectral energy distribution fitting through the CIGALE code, using optical, near-IR, and mid-IR photometry (SDSS, VISTA, and WISE). Of our sources, 608 also have far-IR photometry (Herschel). We use these sources to calibrate the SFR calculations of our remaining X-ray sample. Our results show a correlation between the X-ray luminosity (LX) and the SFR of the host galaxy at all redshifts and luminosities spanned by our sample. We also find a dependence of the specific SFR (sSFR) on redshift, while there are indications that the X-ray luminosity enhances the sSFR even at low redshifts. We then disentangle the effects of stellar mass and redshift on the SFR and again study its dependence on the X-ray luminosity. Towards this end, we estimate the SFR of main-sequence galaxies that have the same stellar mass and redshift as our X-ray AGN and compare them with the SFR of our X-ray AGN. Our analysis reveals that the AGN enhances the star formation of its host galaxy when the galaxy lies below the main sequence and quenches the star formation of the galaxy it lives in when the host lies above the main sequence. Therefore, the effect of AGN on the SFR of the host galaxy depends on the location of the galaxy relative to the main sequence.


2018 ◽  
Vol 618 ◽  
pp. A1 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Wang ◽  
P. Norberg ◽  
S. Brough ◽  
M. J. I. Brown ◽  
E. da Cunha ◽  
...  

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: We examine the environmental dependence for stellar mass selected samples without preselecting star-forming galaxies and study any dependence on the host halo mass separately for centrals and satellites out to z ∼ 0.3. We find the SFR distribution at fixed stellar mass can be described by the combination of two Gaussians (referred to as the star-forming Gaussian and the quiescent Gaussian). Using the observed bimodality to define SFG, we investigate how the fraction of SFG F(SFG) and properties of the MS change with environment. For centrals, the position of the MS is similar to the field but with a larger scatter. No significant dependence on halo mass is observed. For satellites, the position of the MS is almost always lower (by ∼0.2 dex) compared to the field and the width is almost always larger. F(SFG) is similar between centrals (in different halo mass bins) and field galaxies. However, for satellites F(SFG) decreases with increasing halo mass and this dependence is stronger towards lower redshift.


2018 ◽  
Vol 615 ◽  
pp. A114 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Boselli ◽  
M. Fossati ◽  
J. C. Cuillandre ◽  
S. Boissier ◽  
M. Boquien ◽  
...  

During pilot observations of the Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Galaxy Evolution (VESTIGE), a blind narrow-band Hα + [NII] imaging survey of the Virgo cluster carried out with MegaCam at the CFHT, we have observed the spiral galaxy NGC 4254 (M99). Deep Hα + [NII] narrow-band and GALEX UV images reveal the presence of 60 compact (70–500 pc radius) star-forming regions up to ≃20 kpc outside the optical disc of the galaxy. These regions are located along a tail of HI gas stripped from the disc of the galaxy after a rapid gravitational encounter with another Virgo cluster member that simulations indicate occurred 280–750 Myr ago. We have combined the VESTIGE data with multifrequency data from the UV to the far-infrared to characterise the stellar populations of these regions and study the star formation process in an extreme environment such as the tails of stripped gas embedded in the hot intracluster medium. The colour, spectral energy distribution (SED), and linear size consistently indicate that these regions are coeval and have been formed after a single burst of star formation that occurred ≲100 Myr ago. These regions might become free floating objects within the cluster potential well, and be the local analogues of compact sources produced after the interaction of gas-rich systems that occurred during the early formation of clusters.


Author(s):  
A. Katsianis ◽  
E. Tescari ◽  
J. S. B. Wyithe

AbstractThe relation between the star-formation Rate and stellar mass (M⋆) of galaxies represents a fundamental constraint on galaxy formation, and has been studied extensively both in observations and cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. However, the observed amplitude of the star-formation rate—stellar mass relation has not been successfully reproduced in simulations, indicating either that the halo accretion history and baryonic physics are poorly understood/modelled or that observations contain biases. In this paper, we examine the evolution of the SFR −M⋆relation ofz~ 1–4 galaxies and display the inconsistency between observed relations that are obtained using different techniques. We employ cosmological hydrodynamic simulations from various groups which are tuned to reproduce a range of observables and compare these with a range of observed SFR −M⋆relations. We find that numerical results are consistent with observations that use Spectral Energy Distribution techniques to estimate star-formation rates, dust corrections, and stellar masses. On the contrary, simulations are not able to reproduce results that were obtained by combining only UV and IR luminosities (UV+IR). These imply star-formation rates at a fixed stellar mass that are larger almost by a factor of 5 than those of Spectral Energy Distribution measurements forz~ 1.5–4. Forz< 1.5, the results from simulations, Spectral Energy Distribution fitting techniques and IR+UV conversion agree well. We find that surveys that preferably select star-forming galaxies (e.g. by adopting Lyman-break or blue selection) typically predict a larger median/average star-formation rate at a fixed stellar mass especially for high mass objects, with respect to mass selected samples and hydrodynamic simulations. Furthermore, we find remarkable agreement between the numerical results from various authors who have employed different cosmological codes and run simulations with different resolutions. This is interesting for two reasons. (A) simulations can produce realistic populations of galaxies within representative cosmological volumes even at relatively modest resolutions. (B) It is likely that current numerical codes that rely on similar subgrid multiphase interstellar medium models and are tuned to reproduce statistical properties of galaxies, produce similar results for the SFR −M⋆relation by construction, regardless of resolution, box size and, to some extent, the adopted feedback prescriptions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (3) ◽  
pp. 3744-3756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judit Fogasy ◽  
K K Knudsen ◽  
G Drouart ◽  
C D P Lagos ◽  
L Fan

ABSTRACT The gas content of galaxies is a key factor for their growth, starting from star formation and black hole accretion to galaxy mergers. Thus, characterizing its properties through observations of tracers like the CO emission line is of big importance in order to understand the bigger picture of galaxy evolution. We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of dust continuum, CO(5–4) and CO(8–7) line emission in the quasar–star-forming companion system SMM J04135+10277 (z = 2.84). Earlier low-J CO studies of this system found a huge molecular gas reservoir associated with the companion galaxy, while the quasar appeared gas-poor. Our CO observations revealed that the host galaxy of the quasar is also gas-rich, with an estimated molecular gas mass of $\sim (0.7{\!-\!}2.3)\times 10^{10}\, \rm M_{\odot}$. The CO line profiles of the companion galaxy are very broad ($\sim 1000\, \rm km\, s^{-1}$), and show signs of rotation of a compact, massive system. In contrast to previous far-infrared observations, we resolve the continuum emission and detect both sources, with the companion galaxy dominating the dust continuum and the quasar having a $\sim 25{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ contribution to the total dust emission. By fitting the infrared spectral energy distribution of the sources with mr-moose and empirical templates, the infrared luminosities of the quasar and the companion are in the range of $L_{\rm IR, QSO}\sim (2.1{\!-\!}9.6)\times 10^{12}\, \rm L_{\odot}$ and $L_{\rm IR, Comp.}\sim (2.4{\!-\!}24)\times 10^{12}\, \rm L_{\odot}$, while the estimated star formation rates are $\sim 210{\!-\!}960$ and $\sim 240{\!-\!}2400\, \rm M_{\odot }\, yr^{-1}$, respectively. Our results demonstrate that non-detection of low-J CO transition lines in similar sources does not necessarily imply the absence of massive molecular gas reservoir but that the excitation conditions favour the excitation of high-J transitions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 631 ◽  
pp. A38 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Lianou ◽  
P. Barmby ◽  
A. A. Mosenkov ◽  
M. Lehnert ◽  
O. Karczewski

Aims. We derived the dust properties for 753 local galaxies and examine how these relate to some of their physical properties. We present the derived dust emission properties, including model spectral energy distribution (SEDs), star formation rates (SFRs) and stellar masses, as well as their relations. Methods. We modelled the global dust-SEDs for 753 galaxies, treated statistically as an ensemble within a hierarchical Bayesian dust-SED modelling approach, so as to derive their infrared (IR) emission properties. To create the observed dust-SEDs, we used a multi-wavelength set of observations, ranging from near-IR to far-IR-to-submillimeter wavelengths. The model-derived properties are the dust masses (Mdust), the average interstellar radiation field intensities (Uav), the mass fraction of very small dust grains (“QPAH” fraction), as well as their standard deviations. In addition, we used mid-IR observations to derive SFR and stellar masses, quantities independent of the dust-SED modelling. Results. We derive distribution functions of the properties for the galaxy ensemble and as a function of galaxy type. The mean value of Mdust for the early-type galaxies (ETGs) is lower than that for the late-type and irregular galaxies (LTGs and Irs, respectively), despite ETGs and LTGs having stellar masses spanning across the whole range observed. The Uav and “QPAH” fraction show no difference among different galaxy types. When fixing Uav to the Galactic value, the derived “QPAH” fraction varies across the Galactic value (0.071). The specific SFR increases with galaxy type, while this is not the case for the dust-specific SFR (SFR/Mdust), showing an almost constant star formation efficiency per galaxy type. The galaxy sample is characterised by a tight relationship between the dust mass and the stellar mass for the LTGs and Irs, while ETGs scatter around this relation and tend towards smaller dust masses. While the relation indicates that Mdust may fundamentally be linked to M⋆, metallicity and Uav are the second parameter driving the scatter, which we investigate in a forthcoming work. We used the extended Kennicutt–Schmidt (KS) law to estimate the gas mass and the gas-to-dust mass ratio (GDR). The gas mass derived from the extended KS law is on average ∼20% higher than that derived from the KS law, and a large standard deviation indicates the importance of the average star formation present to regulate star formation and gas supply. The average GDR for the LTGs and Irs is 370, and including the ETGs gives an average of 550.


2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (4) ◽  
pp. 5581-5603
Author(s):  
Sabine Bellstedt ◽  
Aaron S G Robotham ◽  
Simon P Driver ◽  
Jessica E Thorne ◽  
Luke J M Davies ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We apply the spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting code ProSpect to multiwavelength imaging for ∼7000 galaxies from the GAMA survey at z &lt; 0.06, in order to extract their star formation histories. We combine a parametric description of the star formation history with a closed-box evolution of metallicity where the present-day gas-phase metallicity of the galaxy is a free parameter. We show with this approach that we are able to recover the observationally determined cosmic star formation history (CSFH), an indication that stars are being formed in the correct epoch of the Universe, on average, for the manner in which we are conducting SED fitting. We also show the contribution to the CSFH of galaxies of different present-day visual morphologies and stellar masses. Our analysis suggests that half of the mass in present-day elliptical galaxies was in place 11 Gyr ago. In other morphological types, the stellar mass formed later, up to 6 Gyr ago for present-day irregular galaxies. Similarly, the most massive galaxies in our sample were shown to have formed half their stellar mass by 11 Gyr ago, whereas the least massive galaxies reached this stage as late as 4 Gyr ago (the well-known effect of ‘galaxy downsizing’). Finally, our metallicity approach allows us to follow the average evolution in gas-phase metallicity for populations of galaxies and extract the evolution of the cosmic metal mass density in stars and in gas, producing results in broad agreement with independent, higher redshift observations of metal densities in the Universe.


2020 ◽  
Vol 640 ◽  
pp. A67
Author(s):  
O. B. Kauffmann ◽  
O. Le Fèvre ◽  
O. Ilbert ◽  
J. Chevallard ◽  
C. C. Williams ◽  
...  

We present a new prospective analysis of deep multi-band imaging with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In this work, we investigate the recovery of high-redshift 5 <  z <  12 galaxies through extensive image simulations of accepted JWST programs, including the Early Release Science in the EGS field and the Guaranteed Time Observations in the HUDF. We introduced complete samples of ∼300 000 galaxies with stellar masses of log(M*/M⊙) > 6 and redshifts of 0 <  z <  15, as well as galactic stars, into realistic mock NIRCam, MIRI, and HST images to properly describe the impact of source blending. We extracted the photometry of the detected sources, as in real images, and estimated the physical properties of galaxies through spectral energy distribution fitting. We find that the photometric redshifts are primarily limited by the availability of blue-band and near-infrared medium-band imaging. The stellar masses and star formation rates are recovered within 0.25 and 0.3 dex, respectively, for galaxies with accurate photometric redshifts. Brown dwarfs contaminating the z >  5 galaxy samples can be reduced to < 0.01 arcmin−2 with a limited impact on galaxy completeness. We investigate multiple high-redshift galaxy selection techniques and find that the best compromise between completeness and purity at 5 <  z <  10 using the full redshift posterior probability distributions. In the EGS field, the galaxy completeness remains higher than 50% at magnitudes mUV <  27.5 and at all redshifts, and the purity is maintained above 80 and 60% at z ≤ 7 and 10, respectively. The faint-end slope of the galaxy UV luminosity function is recovered with a precision of 0.1–0.25, and the cosmic star formation rate density within 0.1 dex. We argue in favor of additional observing programs covering larger areas to better constrain the bright end.


2019 ◽  
Vol 623 ◽  
pp. A48 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Castignani ◽  
F. Combes ◽  
P. Salomé ◽  
C. Benoist ◽  
M. Chiaberge ◽  
...  

Context. Low luminosity radio galaxies (LLRGs) typically reside in dense megaparsec-scale environments and are often associated with brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). They are an excellent tool to study the evolution of molecular gas reservoirs in giant ellipticals, even close to the active galactic nucleus. Aims. We investigate the role of dense megaparsec-scale environment in processing molecular gas in LLRGs in the cores of galaxy (proto-)clusters. To this aim we selected within the COSMOS and DES surveys a sample of five LLRGs at z = 0.4−2.6 that show evidence of ongoing star formation on the basis of their far-infrared (FIR) emission. Methods. We assembled and modeled the FIR-to-UV spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the five radio sources to characterize their host galaxies in terms of stellar mass and star formation rate. We observed the LLRGs with the IRAM-30 m telescope to search for CO emission. We then searched for dense megaparsec-scale overdensities associated with the LLRGs using photometric redshifts of galaxies and the Poisson Probability Method, which we have upgraded using an approach based on the wavelet-transform (wPPM), to ultimately characterize the overdensity in the projected space and estimate the radio galaxy miscentering. Color-color and color-magnitude plots were then derived for the fiducial cluster members, selected using photometric redshifts. Results. Our IRAM-30 m observations yielded upper limits to the CO emission of the LLRGs, at z = 0.39, 0.61, 0.91, 0.97, and 2.6. For the most distant radio source, COSMOS-FRI 70 at z = 2.6, a hint of CO(7→6) emission is found at 2.2σ. The upper limits found for the molecular gas content M(H2)/M⋆ <  0.11, 0.09, 1.8, 1.5, and 0.29, respectively, and depletion time τdep ≲ (0.2−7) Gyr of the five LLRGs are overall consistent with the corresponding values of main sequence field galaxies. Our SED modeling implies large stellar-mass estimates in the range log(M⋆/M⊙) = 10.9−11.5, typical for giant ellipticals. Both our wPPM analysis and the cross-matching of the LLRGs with existing cluster/group catalogs suggest that the megaparsec-scale overdensities around our LLRGs are rich (≲1014 M⊙) groups and show a complex morphology. The color-color and color-magnitude plots suggest that the LLRGs are consistent with being star forming and on the high-luminosity tail of the red sequence. The present study thus increases the still limited statistics of distant cluster core galaxies with CO observations. Conclusions. The radio galaxies of this work are excellent targets for ALMA as well as next-generation telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope.


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