- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/409/1455
- Title:
- Stellar populations of early-type galaxies
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/409/1455
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The influence of environment on the formation and evolution of early-type galaxies is, as yet, an unresolved issue. Constraints can be placed on models of early-type galaxy formation and evolution by examining their stellar populations as a function of environment. We present a catalogue of galaxies well suited to such an investigation. The magnitude-limited (b_J_<=19.45) sample was drawn from four clusters (Coma, A1139, A3558 and A930 at <z>=0.04) and their surrounds. The catalogue contains luminosities, redshifts, velocity dispersions and Lick line strengths for 416 galaxies, of which 245 are classified as early types. Luminosity-weighted ages, metallicities and {alpha}-element abundance ratios have been estimated for 219 of these early types. We also outline the steps necessary for measuring fully calibrated Lick indices and estimating the associated stellar population parameters using up-to-date methods and stellar population models. In a subsequent paper we perform a detailed study of the stellar populations of early-type galaxies in clusters and investigate the effects of environment.
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- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/618/A172
- Title:
- Stellar populations of fossil galaxy groups
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/618/A172
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Fossil groups (FGs) are galaxy aggregates with an extended and luminous X-ray halo, which are dominated by a very massive early-type galaxy and lack of L* objects. FGs are indeed characterized by a large magnitude gap between their central and surrounding galaxies. This is explained by either speculating that FGs are failed groups which formed without bright satellite galaxies and did not suffer any major merger, or suggesting that FGs are very old systems which had enough time to exhaust their bright satellite galaxies through multiple major mergers. Since major mergers leave signatures in the stellar populations of the resulting galaxy, we study the stellar population parameters of the brightest central galaxies (BCGs) of FGs as a benchmark against which the formation and evolution scenarios of FGs can be compared. We present long-slit spectroscopic observations along the major, minor, and diagonal axis of NGC 6482 and NGC 7556, which are the BCGs of two nearby FGs. The measurements include spatially resolved stellar kinematics and radial profiles of line-strength indices, which we converted into stellar population parameters using single stellar-population models. NGC 6482 and NGC 7556 are very massive (M*~1*10^11.5^M_{sun}_) and large (D_25_~50kpc) galaxies. They host a centrally-concentrated stellar population, which is significantly younger and more metal rich than the rest of the galaxy. The age gradients of both galaxies are somewhat larger than those of the other FG BCGs studied so far, whereas their metallicity gradients are similarly negative and shallow. Moreover, they have negligible gradients of alpha-element abundance ratio. The measured metallicity gradients are less steep than those predicted for massive galaxies which formed monolithically and evolved without experiencing any major merger. We conclude that the observed FGs formed through major mergers rather than being failed groups missing bright satellite galaxies since the beginning.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/649/A93
- Title:
- Stellar populations of NGC 3311
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/649/A93
- Date:
- 22 Feb 2022
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Massive early-type galaxies are believed to be the end result of an extended mass accretion history. The stars formed in situ, very early during the initial phase of the assembly, might have originated from an extremely intense and rapid burst of star formation. These stars may still be found within the cores of such galaxies at z=0, depending on their accretion and merger histories. We wish to investigate the presence of a surviving high-z compact progenitor component in the brightest galaxy of the Hydra~I cluster, NGC~3311, by mapping its 2D kinematics and stellar population out to 2 effective radii. Our goal is to understand the formation of its several structural components and trace their mass assembly back in time. We combine MUSE observations, a customized and extended version of the state-of-the-art EMILES single stellar population models, and a newly developed parametric fully Bayesian framework to model the observed spectra using full-spectrum fitting. We present 2D maps, as well as radial profiles, of the stellar velocity dispersion, age, total metallicity, {alpha}-element, sodium abundance ([Na/Fe]), and the initial mass function slope. All properties have significant gradients, confirming the existence of multiple structural components, also including a "blue spot" characterized by younger and metal-richer stars. We find that the component dominating the light budget of NGC 3311 within R<2.0kpc, is the surviving z=0 analogue of a high-z compact core, according to the definition of Pulsoni et al. (2021). This concentrated structure has a relatively small velocity dispersion (sigma~180km/s), is very old (ages~11Gyr), metal-rich ([Z/H]~0.2 and [Na/Fe]~0.4), and has a bottom-heavy IMF (with slope Gamma_b_~2.4). In the outer region, instead, the line-of-sight velocity distribution becomes increasingly broader, and the stars have younger age. They are also metal and sodium poorer but {alpha}-element richer. The low-mass end of the IMF slope becomes Chabrier-like with increasing galactocentric distances. The existence of multiple structural components in NGC 3311 from photometry, kinematics, and stellar populations confirms the predictions from the two-phase formation scenario for NGC 3311, according to which a first very short, high-z star formation episode formed a compact stellar structure in its core, which then grew in size by the extended mass assembly of relatively massive satellites. Interestingly, the outer stellar population has an overabundant [alpha/Fe], most likely because NGC 3311, located at the center of the galaxy cluster, accreted stars from rapidly quenched satellites.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/589/A139
- Title:
- Stellar populations of NGC 3311
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/589/A139
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The history of the mass assembly of brightest cluster galaxies may be studied by mapping the stellar populations at large radial distances from the galaxy centre, where the dynamical times are long and preserve the chemodynamical signatures of the accretion events. To provide extended and robust measurements of the stellar population parameters in NGC 3311, the cD galaxy at the centre of the Hydra I cluster, and out to three effective radius. We wish to characterise the processes that drove the build up of the stellar light at all these radii. We obtained the spectra from several regions in NGC 3311 covering an area of ~3arcmin^2^ in the wavelength range 4800<lambda({AA})<5800, using the FORS2 spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope in the MXU mode. We measured the equivalent width of seven absorption-features defined in the Lick/IDS system, which were modelled by single stellar populations, to provide luminosity-weighted ages, metallicities, and alpha element abundances. The trends in the Lick indices and the distribution of the stellar population parameters indicate that the stars of NGC3311 may be divided in two radial regimes, one within and the another beyond one effective radius, R_e_=8.4kpc, similar to the distinction between the inner galaxy and the external halo derived from the NGC3311 velocity dispersion profile. The inner galaxy (R<R_e_) is old (age ~14Gyr), has negative metallicity gradients and positive alpha element gradients. The external halo is also very old, but has a negative age gradient. The metal and element abundances of the external halo both have a large scatter, indicating that stars from a variety of satellites with different masses have been accreted. The region in the extended halo associated with the off-centred envelope at 0<P.A.({deg})<90 (Arnaboldi et al., 2012A&A...545A..37A) has higher metallicity with respect to the symmetric external halo. The different stellar populations in the inner galaxy and extended halo reflect the dominance of in situ stars in the former and the accreted origin for the large majority of the stars in the latter. The low value of the velocity dispersion in the inner galaxy indicates that its stars are bound to the galaxy's gravitational potential, and the abundances and gradients suggest that the inner galaxy is formed in an outside-in scenario of merging gas-rich lumps, reminiscent of the first phase of galaxy formation. The external halo has a higher velocity dispersion, it is dynamically hotter than the galaxy and its stars are gravitationally driven by the cluster's gravitational potential. The stars in the external halo were removed from their parent galaxies, either disks with truncated star formation, or the outer regions of early-type galaxies. Late mass accretion at large radii is now coming from the tidal stripping of stars from dwarfs and S0 galaxies. These results provide supporting evidence for the recent theoretical models of formation of massive ellipticals as a two-phase process.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/631/A156
- Title:
- Stellar populations of quiescent galaxies
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/631/A156
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Our aim is to determine the distribution of stellar population parameters (extinction, age, metallicity, and star formation rates) of quiescent galaxies within the rest-frame stellar mass-colour diagrams and UVJ colour-colour diagrams corrected for extinction up to z~1. These novel diagrams reduce the contamination in samples of quiescent galaxies owing to dust-reddened galaxies, and they provide useful constraints on stellar population parameters only using rest-frame colours and stellar mass. We set constraints on the stellar population parameters of quiescent galaxies combining the ALHAMBRA multi-filter photo-spectra with our fitting code for spectral energy distribution, MUlti-Filter FITting (MUFFIT), making use of composite stellar population models based on two independent sets of simple stellar population (SSP) models. The extinction obtained by MUFFIT allowed us to remove dusty star-forming (DSF) galaxies from the sample of red UVJ galaxies. The distributions of stellar population parameters across these rest-frame diagrams are revealed after the dust correction and are fitted by LOESS, a bi-dimensional and locally weighted regression method, to reduce uncertainty effects. Quiescent galaxy samples defined via classical UVJ diagrams are typically contaminated by a 20% fraction of DSF galaxies. A significant part of the galaxies in the green valley are actually obscured star-forming galaxies (30-65%). Consequently, the transition of galaxies from the blue cloud to the red sequence, and hence the related mechanisms for quenching, seems to be much more efficient and faster than previously reported. The rest-frame stellar mass-colour and UVJ colour-colour diagrams are useful for constraining the age, metallicity, extinction, and star formation rate of quiescent galaxies by only their redshift, rest-frame colours, and/or stellar mass. Dust correction plays an important role in understanding how quiescent galaxies are distributed in these diagrams and is key to performing a pure selection of quiescent galaxies via intrinsic colours.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/618/A156
- Title:
- Stellar populations of the central region of M31
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/618/A156
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We continue the analysis of the data set of our spectroscopic observation campaign of M31, whose ultimate goal is to provide an understanding of the three-dimensional structure of the bulge, its formation history, and composition in terms of a classical bulge, boxy-peanut bulge, and bar contributions. We derive simple stellar population (SSP) properties, such as age metallicity and alpha-element overabundance, from the measurement of Lick/IDS absorption line indices. We describe their two-dimensional maps taking into account the dust distribution in M31. We found 80% of the values of our age measurements are larger than 10Gyr. The central 100-arcsec of M31 are dominated by the stars of the classical bulge of M31. These stars are old (11-13Gyr), metal-rich (as high as [Z/H]~0.35dex) at the center with a negative gradient outward and enhanced in alpha-elements ([alpha/Fe]~0.28+/-0.01dex). The bar stands out in the metallicity map, where an almost solar value of [Z/H] (~0.02+/-0.01dex) with no gradient is observed along the bar position angle (55.7{deg}) out to 600 arcsec from the center. In contrast, no signature of the bar is seen in the age and [alpha/Fe] maps, which are approximately axisymmetric, delivering a mean age and overabundance for the bar and boxy-peanut bulge of 10-13Gyr and 0.25-0.27dex, respectively. The boxy-peanut bulge has almost solar metallicity (-0.04+/-0.01dex). The mass-to-light ratio of the three components is approximately constant at M/LV~4.4-4.7M_{sun}_/L_{sun}_. The disk component at larger distances is made of a mixture of stars, as young as 3-4Gyr, with solar metallicity and smaller M/LV (~3+/-0.1M_{sun}_/L_{sun}_). We propose a two-phase formation scenario for the inner region of M31, where most of the stars of the classical bulge come into place together with a proto-disk, where a bar develops and quickly transforms it into a boxy-peanut bulge. Star formation continues in the bulge region, producing stars younger than 10Gyr, in particular along the bar, thereby enhancing its metallicity. The disk component appears to build up on longer timescales.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/234/35
- Title:
- Stellar population synthesis of clumps
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/234/35
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We have identified 1027 star-forming complexes in a sample of 46 galaxies from the Spirals, Bridges, and Tails (SB&T) sample of interacting galaxies, and 693 star-forming complexes in a sample of 38 non-interacting spiral (NIS) galaxies in 8{mu}m observations from the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera. We have used archival multi-wavelength UV-to IR observations to fit the observed spectral energy distribution of our clumps with the Code Investigating GALaxy Emission using a double exponentially declined star formation history. We derive the star formation rates (SFRs), stellar masses, ages and fractions of the most recent burst, dust attenuation, and fractional emission due to an active galactic nucleus for these clumps. The resolved star formation main sequence holds on 2.5kpc scales, although it does not hold on 1kpc scales. We analyzed the relation between SFR, stellar mass, and age of the recent burst in the SB&T and NIS samples, and we found that the SFR per stellar mass is higher in the SB&T galaxies, and the clumps are younger in the galaxy pairs. We analyzed the SFR radial profile and found that the SFR is enhanced through the disk and in the tidal features relative to normal spirals.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/412/423
- Title:
- Stellar population trends in S0 galaxies
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/412/423
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present stellar population age and metallicity trends for a sample of 59 S0 galaxies based on optical Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and near-infrared (NIR) J and H photometry. When combined with optical g and r passband imaging data from the SDSS archive and stellar population models, we obtain radial age and metallicity trends out to at least five effective radii for most of the galaxies in our sample. The sample covers a range in stellar mass and light concentration.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/860/37
- Title:
- Stellar specific angular momentum & mass relation
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/860/37
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present the relation between stellar specific angular momentum j*, stellar mass M*, and bulge-to-total light ratio {beta} for The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey, and Romanowsky & Fall (2012ApJS..203...17R) data sets, exploring the existence of a fundamental plane between these parameters, as first suggested by Obreschkow & Glazebrook (2014ApJ...784...26O). Our best-fit M*-j* relation yields a slope of {alpha}=1.03+/-0.11 with a trivariate fit including {beta}. When ignoring the effect of {beta}, the exponent {alpha}=0.56+/-0.06 is consistent with {alpha}=2/3 that is predicted for dark matter halos. There is a linear {beta}-j*/M* relation for {beta}<~0.4, exhibiting a general trend of increasing {beta} with decreasing j*/M*. Galaxies with {beta}>~0.4 have higher j* than predicted by the relation. Pseudobulge galaxies have preferentially lower {beta} for a given j*/M* than galaxies that contain classical bulges. Pseudobulge galaxies follow a well- defined track in {beta}-j*/M* space, consistent with Obreschkow & Glazebrook, while galaxies with classical bulges do not. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that while growth in either bulge type is linked to a decrease in j*/M*, the mechanisms that build pseudobulges seem to be less efficient at increasing bulge mass per decrease in specific angular momentum than those that build classical bulges.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/390/1437
- Title:
- Stellar streams in Andromeda (M31)
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/390/1437
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present a spectroscopic analysis of five stellar streams ("A", "B", "Cr", "Cp" and "D") as well as the extended star cluster, EC4, which lies within Stream "C", all discovered in the halo of M31 from our Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/MegaCam survey. These spectroscopic results were initially serendipitous, making use of our existing observations from the DEep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph mounted on the Keck II telescope, and thereby emphasizing the ubiquity of tidal streams that account for ~70 per cent of the M31 halo stars in the targeted fields. Subsequent spectroscopy was then procured in Stream "C" and Stream "D" to trace the velocity gradient along the streams. Nine metal-rich ([Fe/H]~-0.7) stars at v_hel_=-349.5km/s, {sigma}_v,corr_~5.1+/-2.5km/s are proposed as a serendipitous detection of Stream "Cr", with follow-up kinematic identification at a further point along the stream. Seven metal-poor ([Fe/H]~-1.3) stars confined to a narrow, 15km/s velocity bin centred at v_hel_=-285.6, {sigma}_v,corr_=4.3^+1.7^_-1.4_km/s represent a kinematic detection of Stream "Cp", again with follow-up kinematic identification further along the stream. For the cluster EC4, candidate member stars with average [Fe/H]~-1.4, are found at v_hel_=-282 suggesting it could be related to Stream "Cp". No similarly obvious cold kinematic candidate is found for Stream "D", although candidates are proposed in both of two spectroscopic pointings along the stream (both at ~-400km/s). Spectroscopy near the edge of Stream "B" suggests a likely kinematic detection at v_hel_~-330, {sigma}_v,corr_~6.9km/s, while a candidate kinematic detection of Stream "A" is found (plausibly associated to M33 rather than M31) with v_hel_~-170, {sigma}_v,corr_=12.5km/s. The low dispersion of the streams in kinematics, physical thickness and metallicity makes it hard to reconcile with a scenario whereby these stream structures as an ensemble are related to the giant southern stream. We conclude that the M31 stellar halo is largely made up of multiple kinematically cold streams.
