- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/821/33
- Title:
- Broad H{beta} emission line in 102 Seyfert galaxies
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/821/33
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- A sample of 102 local (0.02=<z=<0.1) Seyfert galaxies with black hole masses M_BH_>10^7^M_{sun}_ was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and observed using the Keck 10 m telescope to study the scaling relations between M_BH_ and host galaxy properties. We study profile changes of the broad H{beta} emission line within the three to nine year time frame between the two sets of spectra. The variability of the broad H{beta} emission line is of particular interest, not only because it is used to estimate M_BH_, but also because its strength and width are used to classify Seyfert galaxies into different types. At least some form of broad-line variability (in either width or flux) is observed in the majority (~66%) of the objects, resulting in a Seyfert-type change for ~38% of the objects, likely driven by variable accretion and/or obscuration. The broad H{beta} line virtually disappears in 3/102 (~3%) extreme cases. We discuss potential causes for these changing look active galactic nuclei. While similar dramatic transitions have previously been reported in the literature, either on a case-by-case basis or in larger samples focusing on quasars at higher redshifts, our study provides statistical information on the frequency of H{beta} line variability in a sample of low-redshift Seyfert galaxies.
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- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/611/A95
- Title:
- Diffuse ionized gas in the Antennae galaxy
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/611/A95
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The Antennae galaxy (NGC 4038/39) is the closest major interacting galaxy system and is therefore often studied as a merger prototype. We present the first comprehensive integral field spectroscopic dataset of this system, observed with the MUSE instrument at the ESO VLT. We cover the two regions in this system which exhibit recent star formation: the central galaxy interaction and a region near the tip of the southern tidal tail. In these fields, we detect HII regions and diffuse ionized gas to unprecedented depth. About 15% of the ionized gas was undetected by previous observing campaigns. This newly detected faint ionized gas is visible everywhere around the central merger, and shows filamentary structure. We estimate diffuse gas fractions of about 60% in the central field and 10% in the southern region. We are able to show that the southern region contains a significantly different population of HII regions, showing fainter luminosities. By comparing HII region luminosities with the HST catalog of young star clusters in the central field, we estimate that there is enough Lyman-continuum leakage in the merger to explain the amount of diffuse ionized gas that we detect. We compare the Lyman-continuum escape fraction of each HII region against emission line ratios that are sensitive to the ionization parameter. While we find no systematic trend between these properties, the most extreme line ratios seem to be strong indicators of density bounded ionization. Extrapolating the Lyman-continuum escape fractions to the southern region, we conclude that simply from the comparison of the young stellar populations to the ionized gas there is no need to invoke other ionization mechanisms than Lyman-continuum leaking HII regions for the diffuse ionized gas in the Antennae.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/623/A5
- Title:
- DustPedia metallicities and HI masses
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/623/A5
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Observations of evolution in the dust-to-metal ratio allow to constrain the dominant dust processing mechanisms. In this work, we present a study of the dust-to-metal and dust-to-gas ratios in a subsample of ~500 DustPedia galaxies. Using literature and MUSE emission line fluxes, we derive gas-phase metallicities (oxygen abundances) for over 10000 individual regions and determine characteristic metallicities for each galaxy. We study how the relative dust, gas and metal contents of galaxies evolve by using metallicity and gas fraction as proxies for evolutionary state. The global oxygen abundance and nitrogen-to-oxygen ratio are found to increase monotonically as galaxies evolve. Additionally, unevolved galaxies (gas fraction >60%, metallicity 12+log(O/H)<8.2) have dust-to-metal ratios that are about a factor of 2.1 lower (factor of 6 lower for galaxies with gas fraction >80%) than the typical dust-to-metal ratio (Md/MZ~0.214) for more evolved sources. However, for high gas fractions, the scatter is larger due to larger observational uncertainties as well as a potential dependence of the dust grain growth timescale and supernova dust yield on local conditions and star formation histories. We find chemical evolution models with a strong contribution from dust grain growth describe these observations reasonably well. The dust-to-metal ratio is also found to be lower for low stellar masses and high specific star formation rates (with the exception of some sources undergoing a starburst). Finally, the metallicity gradient correlates weakly with the HI-to-stellar mass ratio, the effective radius and the dust-to-stellar mass ratio, but not with stellar mass.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/111/377
- Title:
- H{gamma} & H{delta} absorption features
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/111/377
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The H{gamma} and H{delta} absorption features are measured in a sample of 455 (out of an original 460) Lick IDS stars with pseudo-equivalent width indices. For each Balmer feature, two definitions, involving a narrow (~20{AA}) and a wide (~40{AA}) central bandpass, were measured. These four new Balmer indices augment 21 indices previously determined by Worthey et al., and polynomial fitting functions that give index strengths as a function of stellar temperature, gravity, and [Fe/H] are provided. The new indices are folded into models for the integrated light of stellar populations, and predictions are given for single-burst stellar populations of a variety of ages and metallicities. Contrary to our initial hopes, the indices cannot break a degeneracy between burst age and burst strength in poststarbust objects, but they are successful mean-age indicators when used with sensitive metallicity indicators. An appendix gives data, advice, and examples of how to transform new spectra to the 25-index Lick IDS system.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/614/A122
- Title:
- Radial-velocity of CARMENES M dwarfs
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/614/A122
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Previous simulations predicted the activity-induced radial-velocity (RV) variations of M dwarfs to range from ~1cm/s to ~1km/s, depending on various stellar and activity parameters. We investigate the observed relations between RVs, stellar activity, and stellar parameters of M dwarfs by analyzing CARMENES high-resolution visual-channel spectra (0.5-1um), which were taken within the CARMENES RV planet survey during its first 20 months of operation. During this time, 287 of the CARMENES- sample stars were observed at least five times. From each spectrum we derived a relative RV and a measure of chromospheric Halpha emission. In addition, we estimated the chromatic index (CRX) of each spectrum, which is a measure of the RV wavelength dependence. Despite having a median number of only 11 measurements per star, we show that the RV variations of the stars with RV scatter of >10m/s and a projected rotation velocity vsini>2km/s are caused mainly by activity. We name these stars 'active RV-loud stars' and find their occurrence to increase with spectral type: from ~3% for early-type M dwarfs (M0.0-2.5V) through ~30% for mid-type M dwarfs (M3.0-5.5V) to >50% for late-type M dwarfs (M6.0-9.0V). Their RV-scatter amplitude is found to be correlated mainly with vsini. For about half of the stars, we also find a linear RV-CRX anticorrelation, which indicates that their activity-induced RV scatter is lower at longer wavelengths. For most of them we can exclude a linear correlation between RV and Halpha emission. Our results are in agreement with simulated activity-induced RV variations in M dwarfs. The RV variations of most active RV-loud M dwarfs are likely to be caused by dark spots on their surfaces, which move in and out of view as the stars rotate.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/789/140
- Title:
- SDSS quasars balmer emission lines
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/789/140
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- A small fraction of quasars have long been known to show bulk velocity offsets (of a few hundred to thousands of km/s) in the broad Balmer lines with respect to the systemic redshift of the host galaxy. Models to explain these offsets usually invoke broad-line region gas kinematics/asymmetry around single black holes (BHs), orbital motion of massive (~sub-parsec (sub-pc)) binary black holes (BBHs), or recoil BHs, but single-epoch spectra are unable to distinguish between these scenarios. The line-of-sight (LOS) radial velocity (RV) shifts from long-term spectroscopic monitoring can be used to test the BBH hypothesis. We have selected a sample of 399 quasars with kinematically offset broad H{beta} lines from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Seventh Data Release quasar catalog, and have conducted second-epoch optical spectroscopy for 50 of them. Combined with the existing SDSS spectra, the new observations enable us to constrain the LOS RV shifts of broad H{beta} lines with a rest-frame baseline of a few years to nearly a decade. While previous work focused on objects with extreme velocity offset (>10^3^ km/s), we explore the parameter space with smaller (a few hundred km/s) yet significant offsets (99.7% confidence). Using cross-correlation analysis, we detect significant (99% confidence) radial accelerations in the broad H{beta} lines in 24 of the 50 objects, of ~10-200 km/s/yr with a median measurement uncertainty of ~10 km/s/yr, implying a high fraction of variability of the broad-line velocity on multi-year timescales. We suggest that 9 of the 24 detections are sub-pc BBH candidates, which show consistent velocity shifts independently measured from a second broad line (either H{alpha} or Mg II) without significant changes in the broad-line profiles. Combining the results on the general quasar population studied in Paper I (Shen et al. 2013ApJ...775...49S), we find a tentative anti-correlation between the velocity offset in the first-epoch spectrum and the average acceleration between two epochs, which could be explained by orbital phase modulation when the time separation between two epochs is a non-negligible fraction of the orbital period of the motion causing the line displacement. We discuss the implications of our results for the identification of sub-pc BBH candidates in offset-line quasars and for the constraints on their frequency and orbital parameters.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/646/A34
- Title:
- Search for flares and CMEs in SDSS data
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/646/A34
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- This work aims to detect and classify stellar flares and potential stellar coronal mass ejection (CME) signatures in optical spectra provided by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data release 14. The sample is constrained to all F, G, K, and M main-sequence type stars, resulting in more than 630000 stars. This work makes use of the individual spectral exposures provided by the SDSS. An automatic flare search was performed by detecting significant amplitude changes in the H{alpha} and H{beta} spectral lines after a Gaussian profile was fit to the line core. CMEs were searched for by identifying asymmetries in the Balmer lines caused by the Doppler effect of plasma motions in the line of sight. We identified 281 flares on late-type stars (spectral types K3-M9). We identified six possible CME candidates showing excess flux in Balmer line wings. Flare energies in H{alpha} were calculated and masses of the CME candidates were estimated. The derived H{alpha} flare energies range from 3x10^28^-2x10^33^erg. The H{alpha} flare energy increases with earlier types, while the fraction of flaring times increases with later types. Mass estimates for the CME candidates are in the range of 6x10^16^-6x10^18^g, and the highest projected velocities are ~300-700km/s. The low detection rate of CMEs we obtained agrees with previous studies, suggesting that for late-type main-sequence stars the CME occurrence rate that can be detected with optical spectroscopy is low.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/149/79
- Title:
- Spectroscopy of 299 galaxies from NewHa survey
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/149/79
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Using a sample of 299 H{alpha}-selected galaxies at z~~0.8, we study the relationship between galaxy stellar mass, gas-phase metallicity, and star formation rate (SFR), and compare to previous results. We use deep optical spectra obtained with the IMACS spectrograph at the Magellan telescope to measure strong oxygen lines. We combine these spectra and metallicities with (1) rest-frame UV-to-optical imaging, which allows us to determine stellar masses and dust attenuation corrections, and (2) H{alpha} narrowband imaging, which provides a robust measurement of the instantaneous SFR. Our sample spans stellar masses of ~10^9^-6x10^11^M_{sun}_, SFRs of 0.4-270M_{sun}_/yr, and metal abundances of 12+log(O/H)~~8.3-9.1(~~0.4-2.6Z_{sun}_). The correlations that we find between the H{alpha}-based SFR and stellar mass (i.e., the star-forming "main sequence") and between the stellar mass and metallicity are both consistent with previous z~1 studies of star-forming galaxies. We then study the relationship between the three properties using various plane-fitting techniques and a curve-fitting projection. In all cases, we exclude strong dependence of the M_{star}_-Z relation on SFR, but are unable to distinguish between moderate and no dependence. Our results are consistent with previous mass-metallicity-SFR studies. We check whether data set limitations may obscure a strong dependence on the SFR by using mock samples drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. These experiments reveal that the adopted signal-to-noise ratio cuts may have a significant effect on the measured dependence. Further work is needed to investigate these results, and to test whether a "fundamental metallicity relation" or a "fundamental plane" describes star-forming galaxies across cosmic time.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/561/A36
- Title:
- The LickX Spectra library
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/561/A36
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Collections of stellar spectra, often called stellar libraries, are useful in a variety of applications in the field of stellar populations. This is an attempt to improve the much-used Lick library of stellar spectra by removing jitter from the wavelength scale via cross-correlation, and calling the result the LickX library.