An integral field spectroscopic survey for high redshift damped Lyman-α galaxies

AbstractObservations at high redshift reveal that a population of massive, quiescent galaxies (called red nuggets) already existed 10 Gyr ago. These objects undergo a significant size evolution over time, likely due to minor mergers. In this work we present an analysis of local massive compact galaxies to assess if their properties are consistent with what is expected for unevolved red nuggets (relic galaxies). Using integral field spectroscopy (IFS) data from the MaNGA survey from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we characterized the kinematics and properties of stellar populations of massive compact galaxies, and find that these objects exhibit, on average, a higher rotational support than a control sample of average sized early-type galaxies. This is in agreement with a scenario in which these objects have a quiet accretion history, rendering them candidates for relic galaxies.

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What can the Occult do for you? STarlight Attenuation & Reddening Survey of Multiple Occulting Galaxies (STARSMOG)

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921316004762 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 11 (A29B) ◽

pp. 173-175

Author(s):

B. W. Holwerda ◽

W. C. Keel

Keyword(s):

Interstellar Dust ◽

High Redshift ◽

Cosmic Time ◽

Great Accuracy ◽

Clear Understanding ◽

Grain Composition ◽

Galaxy Type ◽

Field Unit ◽

Integral Field

AbstractInterstellar dust is still the dominant uncertainty in Astronomy, limiting precision in e.g., cosmological distance estimates and models of how light is re-processed within a galaxy. When a foreground galaxy serendipitously overlaps a more distant one, the latter backlights the dusty structures in the nearer foreground galaxy. Such an overlapping or occulting galaxy pair can be used to measure the distribution of dust in the closest galaxy with great accuracy. The STARSMOG program uses HST observation of occulting galaxy pairs to accurately map the distribution of dust in foreground galaxies in fine (<100 pc) detail. Furthermore, Integral Field Unit observations of such pairs will map the effective extinction curve in these occulting galaxies, disentangling the role of fine-scale geometry and grain composition on the path of light through a galaxy.The overlapping galaxy technique promises to deliver a clear understanding of the dust in galaxies: the dust geometry, a probability function of the amount of dimming as a function of galaxy type, its dependence on wavelength, and evolution of all these properties with cosmic time using distant, high-redshift pairs.

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The GIST pipeline: A multi-purpose tool for the analysis and visualisation of (integral-field) spectroscopic data

Astronomy and Astrophysics ◽

10.1051/0004-6361/201935829 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 628 ◽

pp. A117 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

A. Bittner ◽

J. Falcón-Barroso ◽

B. Nedelchev ◽

A. Dorta ◽

D. A. Gadotti ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Spectroscopic Data ◽

High Redshift ◽

Line Strength ◽

Simulated Data ◽

Stellar Kinematics ◽

Scientific Analysis ◽

Basic Set ◽

The Galaxy ◽

Set Up ◽

Integral Field

We present a convenient, all-in-one framework for the scientific analysis of fully reduced, (integral-field) spectroscopic data. The Galaxy IFU Spectroscopy Tool (GIST) is entirely written in Python 3 and conducts all the steps from the preparation of input data to the scientific analysis and to the production of publication-quality plots. In its basic set-up, it extracts stellar kinematics, performs an emission-line analysis, and derives stellar population properties from full spectral fitting and via the measurement of absorption line-strength indices by exploiting the well-known pPXF and GandALF routines, where the latter has now been implemented in Python. The pipeline is not specific to any instrument or analysis technique and provides easy means of modification and further development, thanks to its modular code architecture. An elaborate, Python-native parallelisation is implemented and tested on various machines. The software further features a dedicated visualisation routine with a sophisticated graphical user interface. This allows an easy, fully interactive plotting of all measurements, spectra, fits, and residuals, as well as star formation histories and the weight distribution of the models. The pipeline has been successfully applied to both low- and high-redshift data from MUSE, PPAK (CALIFA), and SINFONI, and to simulated data for HARMONI and WEAVE and is currently being used by the TIMER, Fornax3D, and PHANGS collaborations. We demonstrate its capabilities by applying it to MUSE TIMER observations of NGC 1433.

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Future prospects in observational galaxy evolution: towards increased resolution

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s1743921313005395 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 8 (S295) ◽

pp. 368-375

Author(s):

Karl Glazebrook

Keyword(s):

Galaxy Evolution ◽

High Redshift ◽

Personal Perspective ◽

Molecular Gas ◽

Future Prospects ◽

Kinematic Data ◽

Near Ir ◽

Large Numbers ◽

Ir Spectroscopic ◽

Integral Field

AbstractFuture prospects in observational galaxy evolution are reviewed from a personal perspective. New insights will especially come from high-redshift integral field kinematic data and similar low-redshift observations in very large and definitive surveys. We will start to systematically probe the mass structures of galaxies and their haloes via lensing from new imaging surveys and upcoming near-IR spectroscopic surveys will finally obtain large numbers of rest frame optical spectra at high-redshift routinely. ALMA will be an important new ingredient, spatially resolving the molecular gas fuelling the high star-formation rates seen in the early Universe.

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Simulating gas kinematic studies of high-redshift galaxies with the HARMONI integral field spectrograph

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/staa2317 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 498 (2) ◽

pp. 1891-1904

Author(s):

Mark L A Richardson ◽

Laurence Routledge ◽

Niranjan Thatte ◽

Matthias Tecza ◽

Ryan C W Houghton ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Near Infrared ◽

High Redshift ◽

Line Emission ◽

High Angular Resolution ◽

High Redshift Galaxies ◽

Gas Kinematics ◽

Post Process ◽

Kinematic Studies ◽

Integral Field Spectrograph ◽

Integral Field

ABSTRACT We present simulated observations of gas kinematics in a galaxy formed in a 10 pc resolution cosmological simulation with the hydrodynamical + N-body code ramses, using the new ramses2hsim pipeline with the simulated observing pipeline (hsim) for the Extremely Large Telescope High Angular Resolution Monolithic Optical and Near-infrared Integral field spectrograph (HARMONI IFS). We post-process the galaxy's gas kinematics and Hα line emission for each simulation cell, and integrate the emission to produce an extinction-corrected input cube. We then simulate observations of the input cube with HARMONI, for a range of exposure times, spatial sampling, and spectral resolution. We analyse the mock observations to recover galaxy properties such as its kinematics and compare with the known simulation values. We investigate the cause of biases between the ‘real’ and ‘observed’ kinematic values, demonstrating the sensitivity of the inferred rotation curve to knowledge of the instrument’s point spread function.

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Simulated stellar kinematics studies of high-redshift galaxies with the HARMONI Integral Field Spectrograph

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/stw438 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 458 (3) ◽

pp. 2405-2422 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

S. Kendrew ◽

S. Zieleniewski ◽

R. C. W. Houghton ◽

N. Thatte ◽

J. Devriendt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Redshift ◽

Stellar Kinematics ◽

High Redshift Galaxies ◽

Integral Field Spectrograph ◽

Integral Field ◽

Redshift Galaxies

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Integral field spectroscopy of high redshift galaxies with the HARMONI spectrograph on the European Extremely Large Telescope

10.1117/12.2056471 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

S. Kendrew ◽

S. Zieleniewski ◽

N. Thatte ◽

J. Devriendt ◽

R. Houghton ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Redshift ◽

Large Telescope ◽

High Redshift Galaxies ◽

Integral Field Spectroscopy ◽

Field Spectroscopy ◽

Integral Field ◽

Redshift Galaxies

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Star Formation in Damped Lyman α Selected Galaxies

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s174392130701410x ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 3 (S244) ◽

pp. 284-288

Author(s):

Lise Christensen

Keyword(s):

Star Formation ◽

Emission Line ◽

High Redshift ◽

Neutral Hydrogen ◽

Disk Galaxies ◽

Local Universe ◽

High Redshift Galaxies ◽

Neutral Gas ◽

Integral Field Spectroscopy ◽

Integral Field

AbstractI present results from an ongoing survey to study galaxies associated with damped Lyman-α (DLA) systems at redshifts z>2. Integral field spectroscopy is used to search for Lyα emission line objects at the wavelengths where the emission from the quasars have been absorbed by the DLAs. The DLA galaxy candidates detected in this survey are found at distances of 10–20 kpc from the quasar line of sight, implying that galaxies are surrounded by neutral hydrogen at large distances. If we assume that the distribution of neutral gas is exponential, the scale length of the neutral gas is ~6 kpc, similar to large disk galaxies in the local Universe. The emission line luminosities imply smaller star formation rates compared to other high redshift galaxies found in luminosity selected samples.

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Near-infrared Integral-Field Spectrograph (NIFS): An Instrument Proposed for Gemini

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia ◽

10.1071/as99273 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. 273-287 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Peter J. McGregor ◽

Peter Conroy ◽

Gabe Bloxham ◽

Jan van Harmelen

Keyword(s):

Control System ◽

Near Infrared ◽

High Efficiency ◽

Low Cost ◽

High Redshift ◽

Target Velocity ◽

Wide Range ◽

Integral Field Spectrograph ◽

Field Unit ◽

Integral Field

AbstractIn late 1998 the International Gemini Project Office identified a need for a low cost, near-infrared spectrograph to be commissioned on the Gemini South telescope on the shortest possible timescale. In response, the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University proposed to design, construct, and commission a near-infrared, integral-field spectrograph on Gemini. The science drivers and novel design of the Near-infrared Integral-Field Spectrograph (NIFS) are described in this paper. NIFS will achieve significant economies in cost and schedule in several ways:• By addressing targeted science with high efficiency. NIFS will primarily target velocity measurements in galaxies to study the demographics of black holes in galactic nuclei and the evolution of structural properties in high redshift galaxies. However, NIFS will also be applied to a wide range of general astronomical topics, but these will not dictate the instrument design.• By adopting a largely fixed-format design. A 3·2″ × 3·2″ ‘stair-case’ integral field unit (IFU) will feed a near-infrared spectrograph with four fixed-angle gratings mounted on a single grating wheel. A single, fixed-format camera will form the spectral image on a 2048 × 2048 Rockwell HgCdTe HAWAII-2 array. Two-pixel spectral resolving powers of ∼5400 will be achieved with complete wavelength coverage in each of the J, H, and K photometric bands through 32 optimally sampled 0·1″ wide slitlets. The velocity resolution of ∼55 km s−1 will be sufficient to achieve the targeted science objectives, and will allow software rejection of OH airglow lines.• By packaging the NIFS instrument within a duplicate of the Near-Infrared Imager (NIRI) cryostat. The NIRI cryostat, On-Instrument Wavefront Sensor (OIWFS), detector focusing mechanism, control system, and EPICS software will all be duplicated with only minimal change. Construction of the duplicate NIRI cryostat, OIWFS, and control system will be done by the University of Hawaii.

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