The radio properties of blazars detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have been observed as part of the VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey. This large, flux-limited sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) provides insights into the mechanism that produces strong {gamma}-ray emission. At lower flux levels, radio flux density does not directly correlate with {gamma}-ray flux. We find that the LAT-detected BL Lac objects tend to be similar to the non-LAT BL Lac objects, but that the LAT-detected FSRQs are often significantly different from the non-LAT FSRQs. The differences between the {gamma}-ray loud and quiet FSRQs can be explained by Doppler boosting; these objects appear to require larger Doppler factors than those of the BL Lac objects. It is possible that the {gamma}-ray loud FSRQs are fundamentally different from the {gamma}-ray quiet FSRQs. Strong polarization at the base of the jet appears to be a signature for {gamma}-ray loud AGNs.
We quantify the gas accretion rate from minor mergers onto star-forming galaxies in the local Universe using HI observations of 148 nearby spiral galaxies (WHISP sample). We developed a dedicated code that iteratively analyses HI data-cubes, finds dwarf gas-rich satellites around larger galaxies, and estimates an upper limit to the gas accretion rate. We found that 22% of the galaxies have at least one detected dwarf companion. We made the very stringent assumption that all satellites are going to merge in the shortest possible time, transferring all their gas to the main galaxies. This leads to an estimate of the maximum gas accretion rate of 0.28M_{sun}_/yr, about five times lower than the average star formation rate of the sample. Given the assumptions, our accretion rate is clearly an overestimate. Our result strongly suggests that minor mergers do not play a significant role in the total gas accretion budget in local galaxies.
Ionized gas and stellar kinematical parameters have been measured along the major axis of 20 nearby disc galaxies. We discuss the properties of each sample galaxy, distinguishing between those characterized by regular or peculiar kinematics. In early-type disc galaxies, ionized gas tends to rotate faster than stars and to have a lower velocity dispersion (V_g_>V_*_ and {sigma}_g_<{sigma}_*_), whereas in late-type spirals, gas and stars show almost the same rotation velocities and velocity dispersions (V_g_=~V_*_ and {sigma}_g_=~{sigma}_*_). Incorporating the early-type disc galaxies studied by Bertola et al. (1995ApJ...448L..13B), Fisher (1997, Cat. <J/AJ/113/950>) and Corsini et al. (1999, Cat. <J/A+A/342/671>), we have compiled a sample of some 40 galaxies for which the major-axis radial profiles of both the stellar and gaseous components have been measured. The value of {sigma}_*_ measured at R_e_/4 turns out to be strongly correlated with the galaxy morphological type, while {sigma}_g_ is not and sometimes takes values above the range expected from thermal motions or small-scale turbulence.
We measured the ionized-gas and stellar kinematics along the major and minor axis of a sample of 10 early-type spirals. Much to our surprise we found a remarkable gas velocity gradient along the minor axis of 8 of them. According to the kinematic features observed in their ionized-gas velocity fields, we divide our sample galaxies in three classes of objects. (i) NGC 4984, NGC 7213, and NGC 7377 show an overall velocity curve along the minor axis without zero-velocity points, out to the last measured radius, which is interpreted as due to the warped structure of the gaseous disk. (ii) NGC 3885, NGC 4224, and NGC 4586 are characterized by a velocity gradient along both major and minor axis, although non-zero velocities along the minor axis are confined to the central regions. Such gas kinematics have been explained as being due to non-circular motions induced by a triaxial potential. (iii) NGC 2855 and NGC 7049 show a change of slope of the velocity gradient measured along the major axis (which is shallower in the center and steeper away from the nucleus), as well as non-zero gas velocities in the central regions of the minor axis. This has been attributed to the presence of a kinematically-decoupled gaseous component in orthogonal rotation with respect to the galaxy disk, namely an inner polar disk. The case and origin of inner polar disks are discussed and the list of their host galaxies is presented.
We examine the gas and stellar metallicities in a sample of HII galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which possibly contains the largest homogeneous sample of HII galaxy spectra to date. We eliminated all spectra with an insufficient signal-to-noise ratio, without strong emission lines and without the [OII] {lambda}3727{AA} line, which is necessary for the determination of the gas metallicity. This excludes galaxies with redshift ~<0.033. Our final sample contains ~700 spectra of HII galaxies.
A study of the gas content in 1038 interacting galaxies, essentially selected from Arp (<VII/74>), Arp and Madore (<VII/170>), Vorontsov-Velyaminov (<VII/236>) catalogues and some of the published literature, is presented here. The data on the interstellar medium have been extracted from a number of sources in the literature and compared with a sample of 1916 normal galaxies. The mean values for each of the different ISM tracers (FIR, 21cm, CO lines, X-ray) have been estimated by means of survival analysis techniques, in order to take into account the presence of upper limits.
Stars do not form continuously distributed over star-forming galaxies. They form in star clusters of different masses. This nature of clustered star formation is taken into account in the theory of the integrated galactic stellar initial mass function (IGIMF) in which the galaxy-wide initial mass function (IMF) on galaxy-wide scales is calculated by adding all IMFs of young star clusters. For massive stars, the IGIMF is steeper than the universal IMF in star clusters and steepens with decreasing star formation rate (SFR) which is called the IGIMF effect. The current SFR and the total H{alpha} luminosity of galaxies therefore scale nonlinearly in the IGIMF theory compared to the classical case in which the galaxy-wide IMF is assumed to be constant and identical to the IMF in star clusters. Here we apply for the first time the revised SFR-L_H{alpha}_ relation on a sample of local volume star-forming galaxies with measured H{alpha} luminosities.
Tidal dwarf galaxies (TDGs) are recycled objects that form within the collisional debris of interacting and merging galaxies. They are expected to be devoid of non-baryonic dark matter, since they can only form from dissipative material ejected from the discs of the progenitor galaxies. We investigate the gas dynamics in a sample of six bona fide TDGs around three interacting and post-interacting systems: NGC 4694, NGC 5291, and NGC 7252 ("Atoms for Peace"). For NGC 4694 and NGC 5291, we analyse existing HI data from the Very Large Array (VLA), while for NGC 7252 we present new HI observations from the Jansky VLA, together with long-slit and integral-field optical spectroscopy. For all six TDGs, the HI emission can be described by rotating disc models. These HI discs, however, have undergone less than a full rotation since the time of the interaction/merger event, raising the question of whether they are in dynamical equilibrium. Assuming that these discs are in equilibrium, the inferred dynamical masses are consistent with the observed baryonic masses, implying that TDGs are devoid of dark matter. This puts constraints on putative "dark discs" (either baryonic or non-baryonic) in the progenitor galaxies. Moreover, TDGs seem to systematically deviate from the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation. These results provide a challenging test for alternative theories like MOND.
Using a representative sample of 65 intermediate-mass galaxies at z~0.6, we have investigated the interplay between the main ingredients of chemical evolution: metal abundance, gas mass, stellar mass and star formation rate (SFR). All quantities have been estimated using deep spectroscopy and photometry from ultraviolet to infrared and assuming an inversion of the Kennicutt-Schmitt law for the gas fraction. Six billion years ago, galaxies had a mean gas fraction of 32+/-3 per cent, i.e. twice that of their local counterparts. Using higher redshift samples from the literature, we explore the gas phases and estimate the evolution of the mean gas fraction of distant galaxies over the last 11Gyr.
Dust is a crucial component of the interstellar medium of galaxies. The presence of dust strongly affects the light produced by stars within a galaxy. As these photons are our main information vector to explore the stellar mass assembly and therefore understand a galaxy's evolution, modeling the luminous properties of galaxies and taking into account the impact of the dust is a fundamental challenge for semi-analytical models. We present the complete prescription of dust attenuation implemented in the new semi-analytical model (SAM): G.A.S. . This model is based on a two-phase medium originating from a physically motivated turbulent model of gas structuring (G.A.S. I paper). Dust impact is treated by taking into account three dust components: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, Very Small Grains, and Big Grains. All three components evolve in both a diffuse and a fragmented/dense gas phase. Each phase has its own stars, dust content and geometry. Dust content evolves according to the metallicity of it associated phase. The G.A.S. model is used to predict both the UV and the IR luminosity functions from z=9.0 to z=0.1. Our two-phase ISM prescription catches very well the evolution of UV and IR luminosity functions. We note a small overproduction of the IR luminosity at low redshift (z<0.5). We also focus on the Infrared-Excess (IRX) and explore its dependency with the stellar mass, UV slope, stellar age, metallicity and slope of the attenuation curves. Our model predicts large scatters for relations based on IRX, especially for the IRX- relation. Our analysis reveals that the slope of the attenuation curve is more driven by absolute attenuation in the FUV band than by disk inclination.We confirm that the age of the stellar population and the slope of the attenuation curve can both shift galaxies below the fiducial star-birth relation in the IRX- diagram. Main results presented in this paper (e.g. luminosity functions) and in the two other associated G.A.S. papers are stored and available in the GALAKSIENN library through the ZENODO platform.
