We present the results of a high-resolution, 5GHz, Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array study of the nuclear radio emission in a representative subset of the atlas^3D^ survey of early-type galaxies (ETGs). We find that 51+/-4 per cent of the ETGs in our sample contain nuclear radio emission with luminosities as low as 10^18^W/Hz. Most of the nuclear radio sources have compact (<~25-110pc) morphologies, although ~10 per cent display multicomponent core+jet or extended jet/lobe structures. Based on the radio continuum properties, as well as optical emission line diagnostics and the nuclear X-ray properties, we conclude that the majority of the central 5GHz sources detected in the atlas^3D^ galaxies are associated with the presence of an active galactic nucleus (AGN). However, even at subarcsecond spatial resolution, the nuclear radio emission in some cases appears to arise from low-level nuclear star formation rather than an AGN, particularly when molecular gas and a young central stellar population is present. This is in contrast to popular assumptions in the literature that the presence of a compact, unresolved, nuclear radio continuum source universally signifies the presence of an AGN. Additionally, we examine the relationships between the 5 GHz luminosity and various galaxy properties including the molecular gas mass and - for the first time - the global kinematic state. We discuss implications for the growth, triggering, and fuelling of radio AGNs, as well as AGN-driven feedback in the continued evolution of nearby ETGs.
WFAU, Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh
Description:
This DSA hosts data release 1 of the ATLAS Survey housed at the Wide Field Astronomy Unit at the Univeristy of Edinburgh. The initial aim of ATLAS is to survey 4500 deg2 of the Southern Sky at high galactic latitudes to comparable depths to the SDSS in the North. The VST ATLAS will be the first step towards a panoramic digital survey of the Southern Sky in the optical bands. The ATLAS will complement the proposed VISTA Hemisphere Survey in the South.
We study the evidence for a diversity of formation processes in early-type galaxies by presenting the first complete volume-limited sample of slow rotators with both integral-field kinematics from the ATLAS^3D^ Project and high spatial resolution photometry from the Hubble Space Telescope. Analysing the nuclear surface brightness profiles of 12 newly imaged slow rotators, we classify their light profiles as core-less, and place an upper limit to the core size of about 10 pc. Considering the full magnitude and volume-limited ATLAS^3D^ sample, we correlate the presence or lack of cores with stellar kinematics, including the proxy for the stellar angular momentum ({lambda}_Re_) and the velocity dispersion within one half-light radius ({sigma}_e_), stellar mass, stellar age, {alpha}-element abundance, and age and metallicity gradients. More than half of the slow rotators have core-less light profiles, and they are all less massive than 10^11^M_{sun}_. Core-less slow rotators show evidence for counter-rotating flattened structures, have steeper metallicity gradients, and a larger dispersion of gradient values ({Delta}[Z/H]=-0.42+/-0.18) than core slow rotators ({Delta}[Z/H]=-0.23+/-0.07). Our results suggest that core and core-less slow rotators have different assembly processes, where the former, as previously discussed, are the relics of massive dissipation-less merging in the presence of central supermassive black holes. Formation processes of core-less slow rotators are consistent with accretion of counter-rotating gas or gas-rich mergers of special orbital configurations, which lower the final net angular momentum of stars, but support star formation. We also highlight core fast rotators as galaxies that share properties of core slow rotators (i.e. cores, ages, {sigma}_e_, and population gradients) and core-less slow rotators (i.e. kinematics, {lambda}_Re_, mass, and larger spread in population gradients). Formation processes similar to those for core-less slow rotators can be invoked to explain the assembly of core fast rotators, with the distinction that these processes form or preserve cores.
Cross-identifying complex radio sources with optical or infrared (IR) counterparts in surveys such as the Australia Telescope Large Area Survey (ATLAS) has traditionally been performed manually. However, with new surveys from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder detecting many tens of millions of radio sources, such an approach is no longer feasible. This paper presents new software (LRPY - Likelihood Ratio in PYthon) to automate the process of cross-identifying radio sources with catalogues at other wavelengths. lrpy implements the likelihood ratio (LR) technique with a modification to account for two galaxies contributing to a sole measured radio component. We demonstrate lrpy by applying it to ATLAS DR3 and a Spitzer-based multiwavelength fusion catalogue, identifying 3848 matched sources via our LR-based selection criteria. A subset of 1987 sources have flux density values for all IRAC bands which allow us to use criteria to distinguish between active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and star-forming galaxies (SFG). We find that 936 radio sources (~=47 per cent) meet both of the Lacy and Stern AGN selection criteria. Of the matched sources, 295 have spectroscopic redshifts and we examine the radio to IR flux ratio versus redshift, proposing an AGN selection criterion below the Elvis radio-loud AGN limit for this dataset. Taking the union of all three AGNs selection criteria we identify 956 as AGNs (~= 48 per cent). From this dataset, we find a decreasing fraction of AGNs with lower radio flux densities consistent with other results in the literature.
In a survey of 65 galaxies, Gao & Solomon (2004ApJS..152...63G) found a tight linear relation between the infrared luminosity (L_IR_, a proxy for the star formation rate) and the HCN(1-0) luminosity (L_HCN_). Wu et al. (2005ApJ...635L.173W) found that this relation extends from these galaxies to the much less luminous Galactic molecular high-mass star-forming clumps (~1pc scales), and posited that there exists a characteristic ratio L_IR_/L_HCN_ for high-mass star-forming clumps. The Gao-Solomon relation for galaxies could then be explained as a summation of large numbers of high-mass star-forming clumps, resulting in the same L_IR_/L_HCN_ ratio for galaxies. We test this explanation and other possible origins of the Gao-Solomon relation using high-density tracers (including HCN(1-0), N_2_H^+^(1-0), HCO^+^(1-0), HNC(1-0), HC_3_N(10-9), and C_2_H(1-0)) for ~300 Galactic clumps from the Millimetre Astronomy Legacy Team 90GHz (MALT90) survey. The MALT90 data show that the Gao-Solomon relation in galaxies cannot be satisfactorily explained by the blending of large numbers of high-mass clumps in the telescope beam. Not only do the clumps have a large scatter in the L_IR_/L_HCN_ ratio, but also far too many high-mass clumps are required to account for the Galactic IR and HCN luminosities. We suggest that the scatter in the L_IR_/L_HCN_ ratio converges to the scatter of the Gao-Solomon relation at some size-scale >~1kpc. We suggest that the Gao-Solomon relation could instead result from of a universal large-scale star formation efficiency, initial mass function, core mass function, and clump mass function.
The APEX Telescope Large Area Survey: The Galaxy (ATLASGAL) is an unbiased continuum survey of the inner Galactic disk at 870 micron. It covers +/-60{deg} in Galactic longitude and aims to find all massive clumps at various stages of high-mass star formation in the inner Galaxy, particularly the earliest evolutionary phases. We aim to determine properties such as the gas kinetic temperature and dynamics of new massive cold clumps found by ATLASGAL. Most importantly, we derived their kinematical distances from the measured line velocities. We observed the ammonia (J,K)=(1,1) to (3,3) inversion transitions toward 862 clumps of a flux-limited sample of submm clumps detected by ATLASGAL and extracted ^13^CO(1-0) spectra from the Galactic Ring Survey (GRS). We determined distances for a subsample located at the tangential points (71 sources) and for 277 clumps whose near/far distance ambiguity is resolved. Most ATLASGAL clumps are cold with rotational temperatures from 10-30K with a median of 17K. They have a wide range of NH_3_ linewidths (1-7km/s with 1.9km/s as median, which by far exceeds the thermal linewidth, as well as a broad distribution of high column densities from 10^14^ to 10^16^cm^-2^ (median of 2x10^15^cm^-2^) with an NH_3_ abundance in the range of 5 to 30x10^-8^. ATLASGAL sources are massive, >100M_{sun}_, and a fraction of clumps with a broad linewidth is in virial equilibrium. We found an enhancement of clumps at Galactocentric radii of 4.5 and 6kpc. The comparison of the NH_3_ lines as high-density probes with the GRS ^13^CO emission as low-density envelope tracer yields broader linewidths for ^13^CO than for NH_3_. The small differences in derived clump velocities between NH_3_ (representing dense core material) and ^13^CO (representing more diffuse molecular cloud gas) suggests that the cores are essentially at rest relative to the surrounding giant molecular cloud. The high detection rate (87%) confirms ammonia as an excellent probe of the molecular content of the massive, cold clumps revealed by ATLASGAL. A clear trend of increasing rotational temperatures and linewidths with evolutionary stage is seen for source samples ranging from 24 micron dark clumps to clumps with embedded HII regions. The survey provides the largest ammonia sample of high-mass star forming clumps and thus presents an important repository for the characterization of statistical properties of the clumps and the selection of subsamples for detailed, high-resolution follow-up studies.
The APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy (ATLASGAL) is the largest and most sensitive systematic survey of the inner Galactic plane in the submillimetre wavelength regime. The observations were carried out with the Large APEX Bolometer Camera (LABOCA), an array of 295 bolometers observing at 870um (345GHz). In this research note we present the compact source catalogue for the 280{deg}<l<330{deg}and 21{deg}<l<60{deg}regions of this survey. The construction of this catalogue was made with the source extraction routine SExtractor using the same input parameters and procedures as used to analyse the inner Galaxy region presented in an earlier publication (i.e., 330{deg}<l<21{deg}). We have identified 3523 compact sources and present a catalogue of their properties. When combined with the regions already published (see Contreras et al., 2013, Cat. J/A+A/549/A45), this provides a comprehensive and unbiased database of ~10163 massive, dense clumps located across the inner Galaxy.
The ATLASGAL compact source catalog is based on the ATLASGAL survey. This survey was made using the LABOCA bolometer array at APEX, at 870-microns covering the Galactic Plane between 330 degrees and 21-degrees in Galactic longitude and -1.5 to +1.5-degrees in Galactic Latitude. This catalog was created using SEXTRACTOR and contains 6639 sources, with a 99% completeness for sources with peak flux above 6{sigma}.
We have conducted a 3-mm molecular-line survey towards 570 high-mass star-forming clumps, using the Mopra telescope. The sample is selected from the 10000 clumps identified by the ATLASGAL (APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy) survey and includes all of the most important embedded evolutionary stages associated with massive star formation, classified into five distinct categories (quiescent, protostellar, young stellar objects, HII regions, and photon-dominated regions). The observations were performed in broad-band mode with frequency coverage of 85.2-93.4GHz and a velocity resolution of ~0.9km/s, detecting emission from 26 different transitions. We find significant evolutionary trends in the detection rates, integrated line intensities, and abundances of many of the transitions and also identify a couple of molecules that appear to be invariant to changes in the dust temperature and evolutionary stage [N_2_H^+^ (1-0) and HN^13^C (1-0)]. We use the K-ladders for CH_3_C_2_H (5-4) and CH_3_CH (5-4) to calculate the rotation temperatures and find around one-third of the quiescent clumps have rotation temperatures that suggest the presence of an internal heating source. These sources may constitute a population of very young protostellar objects that are still dark at 70um and suggest that the fraction of truly quiescent clumps may only be a few per cent. We also identify a number of line ratios that show a strong correlation with the evolutionary stage of the embedded objects and discuss their utility as diagnostic probes of evolution.
We study the properties of filamentary structures from the ATLASGAL survey. We use the DisPerSE algorithm to identify spatially coherent structures located across the inner-Galaxy (300<l<60 and |b|<1.5). We have determined distances, masses and physical sizes for 241 of the filamentary structures. We find a median distance of 3.8kpc, a mean mass of a few 10^3^M_{sun}_, a mean length of ~6pc and a mass-to-length ratio of (M/L)~200-2000M_sun/pc. We also find that these filamentary structures are tightly correlated with the spiral arms in longitude and velocity, and that their semi-major axis is preferentially aligned parallel to the Galactic mid-plane and therefore with the direction of large-scale Galactic magnetic field. We find many examples where the dense filaments identified in ATLASGAL are associated with larger scale filamentary structures (~100pc), and argue that this is likely to be common, and as such these may indicate a connection between large-scale Galactic dynamics and star formation. We have produced a large and Galaxy-wide catalogue of dense filamentary structures that are representative of a particular size and mass range not previously well studied in the literature. Analyses of the properties and distribution of these filaments reveals that they are correlated with the spiral arms and make a significant contribution to star formation in the Galaxy. Massive star formation is ongoing within ~20% of the filaments and is strongly correlated with the filaments with the largest mass-to- length ratios. The luminosity of the embedded sources has a similar distribution to the Galactic-wide samples of young massive stars and can therefore be considered to be representative.
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