We present evidence for a significant overdensity of red galaxies, as much as a factor of 14 over comparable field samples, in the field of the z=1.47 radio galaxy B3 0003+387. The colors and luminosities of the brightest red galaxies are consistent with their being at z>0.8. The radio galaxy and one of the red galaxies are separated by 5" and show some evidence of a possible interaction. However, the red galaxies do not show any strong clustering around the radio galaxy or around any of the brighter red galaxies. The data suggest that we are looking at a wall or sheet of galaxies, possibly associated with the radio galaxy at z=1.47. Spectroscopic redshifts of these red galaxies will be necessary to confirm this large-scale structure.
The tight correlations between supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass (MBH) and the properties of the host galaxy have useful implications for our understanding of the growth of SMBHs and of the evolution of galaxies. Here, we present newly observed correlations between MBH and the host galaxy total UV-[3.6] color (C_UV,tot_, Pearson's r=0.6-0.7) for a sample of 67 galaxies (20 early-type galaxies and 47 late-type galaxies) with directly measured MBH in the Galaxy Evolution Explorer/S4G survey. The colors are carefully measured in a homogeneous manner using the far-UV, near-UV, and 3.6{mu}m magnitudes of the galaxies and their multicomponent structural decompositions in the literature. We find that more massive SMBHs are hosted by (early- and late-type) galaxies with redder colors, but the M_BH_-C_UV,tot_ relations for the two morphological types have slopes that differ at ~2{sigma} level. Early-type galaxies define a red sequence in the M_BH_-C_UV,tot_ diagrams, while late-type galaxies trace a blue sequence. Within the assumption that the specific star formation rate of a galaxy (sSFR) is well traced by L_UV_/L_3.6_, it follows that the SMBH masses for late-type galaxies exhibit a steeper dependence on sSFR than those for early-type galaxies. The M_BH_-C_UV,tot_ and M_BH_-L_3.6,tot_ relations for the sample galaxies reveal a comparable level of vertical scatter in the log MBH direction, approximately 5%-27% more than the vertical scatter of the M_BH_-{sigma} relation. Our M_BH_-C_UV,tot_ relations suggest different channels of SMBH growth for early- and late-type galaxies, consistent with their distinct formation and evolution scenarios. These new relations offer the prospect of estimating SMBH masses reliably using the galaxy color alone. Furthermore, we show that they are capable of estimating intermediate black hole masses in low-mass early- and late-type galaxies.
According to the virial theorem, all gravitational systems in equilibrium sit on a plane in the three-dimensional parameter space defined by their mass, size, and second moment of the velocity tensor. While these quantities cannot be directly observed, there are suitable proxies: the luminosity L_k_, half-light radius R_e_, and dispersion {sigma}_e_. These proxies indeed lie on a very tight fundamental plane (FP). How do the black holes (BHs) in the centers of galaxies relate to the FP? Their masses are known to exhibit no strong correlation with total galaxy mass, but they do correlate weakly with bulge mass (when present), and extremely well with the velocity dispersion through the M_{bullet}_{propto}{sigma}_e_^5.4^ relation. These facts together imply that a tight plane must also exist defined by BH mass, total galaxy mass, and size. Here, I show that this is indeed the case using a heterogeneous set of 230 BHs. The sample includes BHs from zero to 10 billion solar masses and host galaxies ranging from low surface brightness dwarfs, through bulgeless disks, to brightest cluster galaxies. The resulting BH-size-luminosity relation M_{bullet}_{propto}(L_k_/R_e_)^3.8^ has the same amount of scatter as the M_*_-{sigma} relation and is aligned with the galaxy FP, such that it is just a reprojection of {sigma}_e_. The inferred BH-size-mass relation is M_{bullet}_{propto}(M_*_/R_e_)^2.9^. These relationships are universal and extend to galaxies without bulges. This implies that the BH is primarily correlated with its global velocity dispersion and not with the properties of the bulge. I show that the classical bulge-mass relation is a projection of the M_*_-{sigma} relation. When the velocity dispersion cannot be measured (at high z or low dispersions), the BH-size-mass relation should be used as a proxy for BH mass in favor of just galaxy or bulge mass.
We have probed the pulsating variable star content of the isolated Local Group dwarf galaxy, DDO210 (Aquarius), using archival Advanced Camera for Surveys/Hubble Space Telescope imaging in the F475W and F814W passbands. We find a total of 32 RR Lyrae stars (24 ab-type; 8 c-type) and 75 Cepheid variables. The mean periods of the ab-type and c-type RR Lyrae stars are calculated to be <Pab>=0.609+/-0.011 and <Pc>=0.359+/-0.025d, respectively. The light-curve properties of the fundamental mode RR Lyrae stars yield a mean metallicity of <[Fe/H]>=-1.63+/-0.11dex for this ancient population, consistent with a recent synthetic colour-magnitude diagram analysis. We find this galaxy to be Oosterhoff-intermediate and lacking in high-amplitude, short-period ab-type RR Lyrae, consistent with behaviour recently observed for many dwarf spheroidals and ultrafaint dwarfs in the Local Group. We find a distance modulus of {mu}=25.07+/-0.12 as determined by the RR Lyrae stars, slightly larger but agreeing with recent distance estimates from the red giant branch tip. We also find a sizable population of Cepheid variables in this galaxy. We provide evidence in favour of most if not all of these stars being short-period classical Cepheids. Assuming all of these stars to be classical Cepheids, we find that most of these Cepheids are ~ 300 Myr old, with the youngest Cepheids being offset from the older Cepheids and the centre of the galaxy. We conclude that this may have resulted from a migration of star formation in DDO210.
We examine the magnitude and size evolution of bulgeless (discs with no-bulge or pseudo-bulge) galaxies up to z~0.9 in rest-frame B band. Their evolution is compared to that of normal-discs (or discs with classical bulge). The study is done for luminous sources (M_B_<=-20) in two equal-volume redshift bins (0.4<=z<0.77 and 0.77<=z<1.0) and a local range (0.02<=z<0.05). The mean surface-brightness, mu_B_, from z_mean_=0.89 to z_mean_=0.04, shows a dimming of 0.79mag/arcsec2 for bulgeless galaxies and 1.16mag/arcsec2 for normal-discs. The characteristic magnitude, M_B_, shows an increase of 0.55mag for bulgeless galaxies and 0.95mag for normal-discs. Both dimming and faintness observed since z~0.9 is more pronounced for the normal-discs by ~0.4mag. The size distribution is log-normal and both bulgeless and normal-discs show a slight increase in the mean value, <{Delta}log(R_e_)>~0.11, from z_mean_=0.89 to z_mean_=0.04. The proportion of bulgeless galaxies in the full disc sample undergoes a considerable decline with decrease in redshift. This along with the larger dimming and faintness seen for normal-discs suggests that some fraction of the bulgeless sources switch to the normal-disc morphology with time. To ascertain the validity of studying morphology in the optical, the properties of the galaxies observed in both rest-frame B and I band are compared. The common sample is more luminous in the I band but the sizes are larger in the B band for more than 74 percent of the sources. The variation in the Sersic-index values of the galaxies in the two rest-bands is minor enough to have any effect on the morphological classification.
We use new precision measurements of black hole (BH) masses from water megamaser disks to investigate scaling relations between macroscopic galaxy properties and supermassive BH mass. The megamaser-derived BH masses span 10^6^-10^8^M_{sun}_, while all the galaxy properties that we examine (including total stellar mass, central mass density, and central velocity dispersion) lie within a narrower range. Thus, no galaxy property correlates tightly with M_BH_ in ~L* spiral galaxies as traced by megamaser disks. Of them all, stellar velocity dispersion provides the tightest relation, but at fixed {sigma}_*_ the mean megamaser M_BH_ are offset by -0.6+/-0.1dex relative to early-type galaxies. Spiral galaxies with non-maser dynamical BH masses do not appear to show this offset. At low mass, we do not yet know the full distribution of BH mass at fixed galaxy property; the non-maser dynamical measurements may miss the low-mass end of the BH distribution due to an inability to resolve their spheres of influence and/or megamasers may preferentially occur in lower-mass BHs.
Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) are believed to be powered by the accretion of matter onto low-mass black holes (BHs) in spiral host galaxies with BH masses M_BH_~10^6^-10^8^M_{sun}_. However, the broadband spectral energy distribution of the {gamma}-ray-emitting NLS1s are found to be similar to flat-spectrum radio quasars. This challenges our current notion of NLS1s having low M_BH_. To resolve this tension of low M_BH_ values in NLS1s, we fitted the observed optical spectrum of a sample of radio-loud NLS1s (RL-NLS1s), radio-quiet NLS1s (RQ-NLS1s), and radio-quiet broad-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (RQ-BLS1s) of ~500 each with the standard Shakura-Sunyaev accretion disk (AD) model. For RL-NLS1s we found a mean log(M_BH_^AD^/M_{sun}_) of 7.98+/-0.54. For RQ-NLS1s and RQ-BLS1s we found mean log(M_BH_^AD^/M_{sun}_) of 8.00+/-0.43 and 7.90+/-0.57, respectively. While the derived M_BH_^AD^ values of RQ-BLS1s are similar to their virial masses, for NLS1s the derived M_BH_^AD^ values are about an order of magnitude larger than their virial estimates. Our analysis thus indicates that NLS1s have M_BH_ similar to RQ-BLS1s and their available virial M_BH_ values are underestimated, influenced by their observed relatively small emission line widths. Considering Eddington ratio as an estimation of the accretion rate and using M_BH_^AD^, we found the mean accretion rate of our RQ-NLS1s, RL-NLS1s, and RQ-BLS1s as 0.06_-0.05_^+0.16^, 0.05_-0.04_^+0.18^ and 0.05_-0.04_^+0.15^, respectively. Our results therefore suggest that NLS1s have BH masses and accretion rates that are similar to BLS1s.
We report on the serendipitous discovery in the Blanco Cosmology Survey (BCS) imaging data of a z=0.9057 galaxy that is being strongly lensed by a massive galaxy cluster at a redshift of z=0.3838. The lens (BCS J2352-5452) was discovered while examining i- and z-band images being acquired in 2006 October during a BCS observing run. Follow-up spectroscopic observations with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph instrument on the Gemini-South 8m telescope confirmed the lensing nature of this system. Using weak-plus-strong lensing, velocity dispersion, cluster richness N_200_, and fitting to a Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) cluster mass density profile, we have made three independent estimates of the mass M_200_ which are all very consistent with each other. The combination of the results from the three methods gives M_200_=(5.1+/-1.3)x10^14^M_{sun}_, which is fully consistent with the individual measurements. The final NFW concentration c_200_ from the combined fit is c_200_=5.4^+1.4^_-1.1_. We have compared our measurements of M_200_ and c_200_ with predictions for (1) clusters from {Lambda}CDM simulations, (2) lensing-selected clusters from simulations, and (3) a real sample of cluster lenses.
We present results from a survey carried out by the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) on a 9deg^2^ field near the South Ecliptic Pole at 250, 350, and 500um. The median 1{sigma} depths of the maps are 36.0, 26.4, and 18.4mJy, respectively. We apply a statistical method to estimate submillimeter galaxy number counts and find that they are in agreement with other measurements made with the same instrument and with the more recent results from Herschel/SPIRE. Thanks to the large field observed, the new measurements give additional constraints on the bright end of the counts. We identify 132, 89, and 61 sources with S/N>=4 at 250, 350, 500um, respectively and provide a multi-wavelength combined catalog of 232 sources with a significance >=4{sigma} in at least one BLAST band.
Accretion rates and their correlation with cosmological redshifts for a sample of blazars and Seyfert galaxies are presented. The sample includes 77 blazars (28 FSRQs, 26 LBLs, and 23 HBLs) and 60 Seyfert galaxies, of which the extended spectral energy distribution information and redshifts are available. Within the framework of accreting black holes, the accretion rates for these sources were estimated based on their bolometric luminosities.
