- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/647/1075
- Title:
- Age-metallicity relation of {omega} Cen
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/647/1075
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present a metallicity distribution based on photometry and spectra for 442 Omega Centauri cluster members that lie at the main-sequence turnoff region of the color-magnitude diagram. This distribution is similar to that found for the red giant branch. The distribution shows a sharp rise to a mean of [Fe/H]=-1.7 with a long tail to higher metallicities. Ages have then been determined for the stars using theoretical isochrones enabling the construction of an age-metallicity diagram. Interpretation of this diagram is complicated by the correlation of the errors in the metallicities and ages. Nevertheless, after extensive Monte Carlo simulations, we conclude that our data show that the formation of the cluster took place over an extended period of time: the most metal-rich stars in our sample ([Fe/H]~-0.6) are younger by 2-4Gyr than the most metal-poor population.
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- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/751/122
- Title:
- Ages and masses for 920 LMC clusters
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/751/122
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present new age and mass estimates for 920 stellar clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) based on previously published broadband photometry and the stellar cluster analysis package, MASSCLEANage. Expressed in the generic fitting formula, d^2^N/dMdt{prop.to}M^{alpha}^t^{beta}^, the distribution of observed clusters is described by {alpha}=-1.5 to -1.6 and {beta}=-2.1 to -2.2. For 288 of these clusters, ages have recently been determined based on stellar photometric color-magnitude diagrams, allowing us to gauge the confidence of our ages. The results look very promising, opening up the possibility that this sample of 920 clusters, with reliable and consistent age, mass, and photometric measures, might be used to constrain important characteristics about the stellar cluster population in the LMC. We also investigate a traditional age determination method that uses a {chi}^2^ minimization routine to fit observed cluster colors to standard infinite-mass limit simple stellar population models. This reveals serious defects in the derived cluster age distribution using this method. The traditional {chi}^2^ minimization method, due to the variation of U, B, V, R colors, will always produce an overdensity of younger and older clusters, with an underdensity of clusters in the log(age/yr)=[7.0,7.5] range. Finally, we present a unique simulation aimed at illustrating and constraining the fading limit in observed cluster distributions that includes the complex effects of stochastic variations in the observed properties of stellar clusters.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/750/91
- Title:
- Ages and metallicities of old stellar systems
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/750/91
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present a statistical analysis of the properties of a large sample of dynamically hot old stellar systems, from globular clusters (GCs) to giant ellipticals, which was performed in order to investigate the origin of ultracompact dwarf galaxies (UCDs). The data were mostly drawn from Forbes et al. (2008, Cat. J/MNRAS/389/1924). We recalculated some of the effective radii, computed mean surface brightnesses and mass-to-light ratios, and estimated ages and metallicities. We completed the sample with GCs of M31. We used a multivariate statistical technique (K-Means clustering), together with a new algorithm (Gap Statistics) for finding the optimum number of homogeneous sub-groups in the sample, using a total of six parameters (absolute magnitude, effective radius, virial mass-to-light ratio, stellar mass-to-light ratio, and metallicity). We found six groups. FK1 and FK5 are composed of high- and low-mass elliptical galaxies, respectively. FK3 and FK6 are composed of high-metallicity and low-metallicity objects, respectively, and both include GCs and UCDs. Two very small groups, FK2 and FK4, are composed of Local Group dwarf spheroidals. Our groups differ in their mean masses and virial mass-to-light ratios. The relations between these two parameters are also different for the various groups. The probability density distributions of metallicity for the four groups of galaxies are similar to those of the GCs and UCDs. The brightest low-metallicity GCs and UCDs tend to follow the mass-metallicity relation like elliptical galaxies. The objects of FK3 are more metal-rich per unit effective luminosity density than high-mass ellipticals.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/870/9
- Title:
- Ages & masses for GPS1 WD-MS binary systems
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/870/9
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Observational tests of stellar and Galactic chemical evolution call for the joint knowledge of a star's physical parameters, detailed element abundances, and precise age. For cool main-sequence (MS) stars the abundances of many elements can be measured from spectroscopy, but ages are very hard to determine. The situation is different if the MS star has a white dwarf (WD) companion and a known distance, as the age of such a binary system can then be determined precisely from the photometric properties of the cooling WD. As a pilot study for obtaining precise age determinations of field MS stars, we identify nearly 100 candidates for such wide binary systems: a faint WD whose Gaia-PS1-SDSS (GPS1) proper motion (Tian+ 2017, I/343) matches that of a brighter MS star in Gaia/TGAS (Gaia Collaboration 2016, I/337) with a good parallax ({sigma}_{rho}_/{rho}=<0.05). We model the WD's multi-band photometry with the BASE-9 code using this precise distance (assumed to be common for the pair) and infer ages for each binary system. The resulting age estimates are precise to =<10% (=<20%) for 42 (67) MS-WD systems. Our analysis more than doubles the number of MS-WD systems with precise distances known to date, and it boosts the number of such systems with precise age determination by an order of magnitude. With the advent of the Gaia DR2 (Gaia Collaboration, 2018, I/345) data, this approach will be applicable to a far larger sample, providing ages for many MS stars (that can yield detailed abundances for over 20 elements), especially in the age range of 2-8Gyr, where there are only few known star clusters.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/253/58
- Title:
- Ages of field stars from white dwarf comp. in Gaia
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/253/58
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We analyze 4050 wide binary star systems involving a white dwarf (WD) and usually a main-sequence (MS) star, drawn from the large sample assembled by Tian+ (2020, J/ApJS/246/4). Using the modeling code BASE-9, we determine the system's ages, the WD progenitors' zero-age MS masses, the extinction values (AV), and the distance moduli. Discarding the cases with poor age convergences, we obtain ages for 3551 WDs, with a median age precision of {sigma}{tau}/{tau}=20%, and system ages typically in the range of 1-6Gyr. We validated these ages against the very few known clusters and through cross validation of 236 WD-WD binaries. Under the assumption that the components are coeval in a binary system, this provides precise age constraints on the usually low-mass MS companions, mostly inaccessible by any other means.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/642/L10
- Title:
- AGESVC1 282 deep optical image
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/642/L10
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The blind HI survey Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey (AGES) detected several unresolved sources in the Virgo cluster, which do not have optical counterparts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The origin of these dark clouds is unknown. They might be crucial objects since they could be the so-called dark galaxies, that is, the dark matter halos without stellar content that are expected from cosmological simulations. In order to reveal the nature of the dark clouds, we took a deep optical image of one them, AGESVC1 282, with the newly-commissioned 1.4m Milankovic Telescope. After observing it for 10.4h in the L-filter, the image reached a surface-brightness limit of about 29.1mag/arcsec^+2^ in V. No optical counterpart was detected. We placed an upper limit on the Vband luminosity of the object of 1.1x10^7^L_{sun}_, giving a stellar mass below 1.4x10^7^M_{sun}_ and a HI-to-stellar mass ratio above 3.1. By inspecting archival HI observations of the surrounding region, we found that none of the standard explanations for optically dark HI clouds fits the available constraints on this object.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/437/968
- Title:
- AGN automatic photometric classification
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/437/968
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- In this paper, we discuss an application of machine-learning-based methods to the identification of candidate active galactic nucleus (AGN) from optical survey data and to the automatic classification ofAGNs in broad classes. We applied four different machine-learning algorithms, namely the Multi Layer Perceptron, trained, respectively, with the Conjugate Gradient, the Scaled Conjugate Gradient, the Quasi Newton learning rules and the Support Vector Machines, Q4 to tackle the problem of the classification of emission line galaxies in different classes, mainly AGNs versus non-AGNs, obtained using optical photometry in place of the diagnostics based on line intensity ratios which are classically used in the literature. Using the same photometric features, we discuss also the behaviour of the classifiers on finer AGN classification tasks, namely Seyfert I versus Seyfert II, and Seyfert versus LINER. Furthermore, we describe the algorithms employed, the samples of spectroscopically classified galaxies used to train the algorithms, the procedure followed to select the photometric parameters and the performances of our methods in terms of multiple statistical indicators. The results of the experiments show that the application of self-adaptive data mining algorithms trained on spectroscopic data sets and applied to carefully chosen photometric parameters represents a viable alternative to the classical methods that employ time-consuming spectroscopic observations.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/691/705
- Title:
- AGN host galaxy morphologies in COSMOS
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/691/705
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We use Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys images and a photometric catalog of the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) field to analyze morphologies of the host galaxies of ~400 active galactic nucleus (AGN) candidates at redshifts 0.3<z<1.0. We compare the AGN hosts with a sample of nonactive galaxies drawn from the COSMOS field to match the magnitude and redshift distribution of the AGN hosts. We perform two-dimensional surface brightness modeling with GALFIT to yield host galaxy and nuclear point source magnitudes. X-ray-selected AGN host galaxy morphologies span a substantial range that peaks between those of early-type, bulge-dominated and late-type, disk-dominated systems. We also measure the asymmetry and concentration of the host galaxies. Unaccounted for, the nuclear point source can significantly bias results of these measured structural parameters, so we subtract the best-fit point source component to obtain images of the underlying host galaxies. Our concentration measurements reinforce the findings of our two-dimensional morphology fits, placing X-ray AGN hosts between early- and late-type inactive galaxies. AGN host asymmetry distributions are consistent with those of control galaxies.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/737/101
- Title:
- AGN pairs from SDSS-DR7. I.
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/737/101
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Galaxy-galaxy mergers and close interactions have long been regarded as a viable mechanism for channeling gas toward the central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) of galaxies which are triggered as active galactic nuclei (AGNs). AGN pairs, in which the central SMBHs of a galaxy merger are both active, are expected to be common from such events. We conduct a systematic study of 1286 AGN pairs at \bar{z}~0.1 with line-of-sight velocity offsets {Delta}v<600km/s and projected separations r_p_<100h^-1^_70_kpc, selected from the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS, Cat. II/294). This AGN pair sample was drawn from 138070 AGNs optically identified based on diagnostic emission line ratios and/or line widths. The fraction of AGN pairs with 5h^-1^_70_kpc<~r_p_<100h^-1^_70_kpc among all spectroscopically selected AGNs at 0.02<z<0.16 is 3.6% after correcting for SDSS spectroscopic incompleteness; ~30% of these pairs show morphological tidal features in their SDSS images, and the fraction becomes >~80% for pairs with the brightest nuclei.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/146/87
- Title:
- AGN photometry. II. A catalog from the CFHTLS
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/146/87
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- This is the second paper of the series Detecting Active Galactic Nuclei Using Multi-filter Imaging Data. In this paper we review shapelets, an image manipulation algorithm, which we employ to adjust the point-spread function (PSF) of galaxy images. This technique is used to ensure the image in each filter has the same and sharpest PSF, which is the preferred condition for detecting AGNs using multi-filter imaging data as we demonstrated in Paper I of this series. We apply shapelets on Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Wide Survey ugriz images. Photometric parameters such as effective radii, integrated fluxes within certain radii, and color gradients are measured on the shapelets-reconstructed images. These parameters are used by artificial neural networks (ANNs) which yield: photometric redshift with an rms of 0.026 and a regression R-value of 0.92; galaxy morphological types with an uncertainty less than 2 T types for z<=0.1; and identification of galaxies as AGNs with 70% confidence, star-forming/starburst (SF/SB) galaxies with 90% confidence, and passive galaxies with 70% confidence for z<=0.1. The incorporation of ANNs provides a more reliable technique for identifying AGN or SF/SB candidates, which could be very useful for large-scale multi-filter optical surveys that also include a modest set of spectroscopic data sufficient to train neural networks.