In Paper I of this series we introduced a volume-limited parent sample of 871 galaxies from which we extracted the ATLAS3D sample of 260 early-type galaxies (ETGs). In Papers II and III we classified the ETGs using their stellar kinematics, in a way that is nearly insensitive to the projection effects, and we separated them into fast and slow rotators. Here we look at galaxy morphology and note that the edge-on fast rotators generally are lenticular galaxies.
We investigate nuclear light profiles in 135 ATLAS3D galaxies for which the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging is available and compare them to the large-scale kinematics obtained with the SAURON integral-field spectrograph. Specific angular momentum, {lambda}_R_, correlates with the shape of nuclear light profiles, where, as suggested by previous studies, cores are typically found in slow rotators and core-less galaxies are fast rotators. As also shown before, cores are found only in massive galaxies and only in systems with the stellar mass (measured via dynamical models) M>~8x10^10^M_{sun}_. Based on our sample, we, however, see no evidence for a bimodal distribution of nuclear slopes. The best predictor for finding a core is based on the stellar velocity dispersion within an effective radius, {sigma}_e_, and specific angular momentum, where cores are found for {lambda}_R<~0.25 and {sigma}_e_>~160km/s. We estimate that only about 10percent of nearby early-type galaxies contain cores. Furthermore, we show that there is a genuine population of fast rotators with cores. We also show that core fast rotators are morphologically, kinematically and dynamically different from core slow rotators. The cores of fast rotators, however, could harbour black holes of similar masses to those in core slow rotators, but typically more massive than those found in core-less fast rotators. Cores of both fast and slow rotators are made of old stars and found in galaxies typically lacking molecular or atomic gas (with a few exceptions). Core-less galaxies, and especially core-less fast rotators, are underluminous in the diffuse X-ray emission, but the presence of a core does not imply high X-ray luminosities. Additionally, we postulate (as many of these galaxies lack HST imaging) a possible population of core-less galaxies among slow rotators, which cannot be explained as face-on discs, but comprise a genuine sub-population of slow rotators. These galaxies are typically less massive and flatter than core slow rotators, and show evidence for dynamical cold structures and exponential photometric components. Based on our findings, major non-dissipative (gas-poor) mergers together with black hole binary evolution may not be the only path for formation of cores in early-type galaxies. We discuss possible processes for formation of cores and their subsequent preservation.
Galactic archaeology based on star counts is instrumental to reconstruct the past mass assembly of Local Group galaxies. The development of new observing techniques and data reduction, coupled with the use of sensitive large field of view cameras, now allows us to pursue this technique in more distant galaxies exploiting their diffuse low surface brightness (LSB) light. As part of the ATLAS3D project, we have obtained with the MegaCam camera at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope extremely deep, multiband images of nearby early-type galaxies (ETGs). We present here a catalogue of 92 galaxies from the ATLAS3D sample, which are located in low- to medium-density environments. The observing strategy and data reduction pipeline, which achieve a gain of several magnitudes in the limiting surface brightness with respect to classical imaging surveys, are presented. The size and depth of the survey are compared to other recent deep imaging projects. The paper highlights the capability of LSB-optimized surveys at detecting new prominent structures that change the apparent morphology of galaxies. The intrinsic limitations of deep imaging observations are also discussed, among those, the contamination of the stellar haloes of galaxies by extended ghost reflections, and the cirrus emission from Galactic dust. The detection and systematic census of fine structures that trace the present and past mass assembly of ETGs are one of the prime goals of the project. We provide specific examples of each type of observed structures - tidal tails, stellar streams and shells - and explain how they were identified and classified. We give an overview of the initial results. The detailed statistical analysis will be presented in future papers.
We present the stellar population content of early-type galaxies from the ATLAS3D survey. Using spectra integrated within apertures covering up to one effective radius, we apply two methods: one based on measuring line-strength indices and applying single stellar population (SSP) models to derive SSP-equivalent values of stellar age, metallicity, and alpha enhancement; and one based on spectral fitting to derive non-parametric star formation histories, mass-weighted average values of age, metallicity, and half-mass formation time-scales. Using homogeneously derived effective radii and dynamically determined galaxy masses, we present the distribution of stellar population parameters on the Mass Plane (M_JAM_, {sigma}_e_, R^maj^_e_), showing that at fixed mass, compact early-type galaxies are on average older, more metal-rich, and more alpha-enhanced than their larger counterparts. From non-parametric star formation histories, we find that the duration of star formation is systematically more extended in lower mass objects. Assuming that our sample represents most of the stellar content of today's local Universe, approximately 50 percent of all stars formed within the first 2Gyr following the big bang. Most of these stars reside today in the most massive galaxies (>10^10.5^M_{sun}_), which themselves formed 90 percent of their stars by z~2. The lower mass objects, in contrast, have formed barely half their stars in this time interval. Stellar population properties are independent of environment over two orders of magnitude in local density, varying only with galaxy mass. In the highest density regions of our volume (dominated by the Virgo cluster), galaxies are older, alpha-enhanced, and have shorter star formation histories with respect to lower density regions.
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.
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.
