We compare star formation in the inner and outer disks of 11 dwarf Irregular galaxies (dIm) within 3.6 Mpc. The regions are identified on GALEX near-UV images, and modeled with UV, optical, and near-IR colors to determine masses and ages. A few galaxies have made 10^5-10^6 Msun complexes in a starburst phase, while others have not formed clusters in the last 50 Myrs. The maximum region mass correlates with the number of regions as expected from the size-of-sample effect. We find no radial gradients in region masses and ages, even beyond the realm of Halpha emission, although there is an exponential decrease in the luminosity density and number density of the regions with radius. Halpha is apparently lacking in the outer parts only because nebular emission around massive stars is too faint to see. The outermost regions for the 5 galaxies with HI data formed at average gas surface densities of 1.9-5.9 Msun/pc2. These low average densities imply either that local gas densities are high or sub-threshold star formation is possible. The distribution of regions on a log Mass - log age plot is is usually uniform along log age for equal intervals of log Mass. This uniformity results from either an individual region mass that varies as 1/age or a region disruption probability that varies as 1/age. A correlation between fading-corrected surface brightness and age suggests the former.
We detected recent star formation in nearby early-type galaxies located in low density environments, with GALEX Ultraviolet (UV) imaging. Signatures of star formation may be present in the nucleus and in outer rings/arm like structures. Our study suggests that such star formation may be induced by different triggering mechanisms, such as the inner secular evolution driven by bars, and minor accretion phenomena. We investigate the nature of the (FUV-NUV) color vs. Mg2 correlation, and suggest that it relates to "downsizing" in galaxy formation.
The largest galaxies acquire their mass early on, when the Universe is still youthful. Cold streams violently feed these young galaxies a vast amount of fresh gas, resulting in very efficient star formation. Using a well resolved hydrodynamical simulation of galaxy formation, we demonstrate that these mammoth galaxies are already in place a couple of billion years after the Big Bang. Contrary to local starforming galaxies, where dust re-emits a large part of the stellar ultraviolet (UV) light at infrared and sub-millimetre wavelengths, our self-consistent modelling of dust extinction predicts …
We present GALEX far-ultraviolet (FUV) and near-ultraviolet (NUV) as well as SDSS g, r, i photometry and structural parameters for the Herschel Reference Survey, a magnitude-, volume-limited sample of nearby galaxies in different environments. We use this unique dataset to investigate the ultraviolet (UV) structural scaling relations of nearby galaxies and to determine how the properties of the UV disk vary with atomic hydrogen content and environment. We find a clear change of slope in the stellar mass vs. effective surface brightness relation when moving from the optical to the UV, with more…
We conduct a survey of low surface brightness (LSB) satellite galaxies around the Local Volume massive spirals using long exposures with small amateur telescopes. We identified 27 low and very low surface brightness objects around the galaxies NGC,672, 891, 1156, 2683, 3344, 4258, 4618, 4631, and 5457 situated within 10 Mpc from us, and found nothing new around NGC,2903, 3239, 4214, and 5585. Assuming that the dwarf candidates are the satellites of the neighboring luminous galaxies, their absolute magnitudes are in the range of -8.6 > M_B > -13.3, their effective diameters are 0.4-4.7 kpc, and…
We present measurements and statistical properties of the optical and ultraviolet emission lines present in the spectra of 85 bright quasars which have detailed spectral energy distributions. This heterogeneous sample has redshifts up to z=1.5 and is comprised of three subsamples that may be of particular utility: ultraviolet excess Palomar-Green quasars, quasars with far-ultraviolet coverage from FUSE, and radio-loud quasars selected to have similar extended radio luminosity originally selected for orientation studies. Most of the objects have quasi-simultaneous optical-ultraviolet spectra, w…
With the observations of the CS 5-4 line toward a sample of 24 infrared bright galaxies using HHSMT, we detected CS 5-4 emission in 14 galaxies, including 12 ULIRGs/LIRGs and 2 nearby normal galaxies. As a good dense gas tracer, which has been well used for studying star formation in the Milky Way, CS 5-4 can trace the active star forming gas in galaxies. The correlation between CS 5-4 luminosity, which is estimated with detected CS 5-4 line emission, and infrared luminosity in these 14 galaxies is fitted with correlation coefficient of 0.939 and the slope close to unity. This correlation conf…
We use surface brightness contour maps of nearby edge-on spiral galaxies to determine whether extended bright radio halos are common. In particular, we test a recent model of the spatial structure of the diffuse radio continuum by Subrahmanyan and Cowsik which posits that a substantial fraction of the observed high-latitude surface brightness originates from an extended Galactic halo of uniform emissivity. Measurements of the axial ratio of emission contours within a sample of normal spiral galaxies at 1500 MHz and below show no evidence for such a bright, extended radio halo. Either the Galax…
We study photometric properties, chemical abundances and sizes of star formation regions in the two principal arms of the galaxy NGC 628 (M74). The GALEX ultraviolet, optical UBVRI, and H-alpha? surface photometry data are used, including those obtained with the 1.5-m telescope of the Maidanak Observatory. The thirty brightest star formation regions in ultraviolet light located in the spiral arms of NGC 628 are identified and studied. We find that the star formation regions in one (longer) arm are systematically brighter and larger than the regions in the other (shorter) arm. However, both lum…
The Galaxy Ultraviolet Explorer (GALEX) satellite has recently shown the presence of an extended, outer ring studded with UV-bright knots surrounding the lenticular galaxy NGC 4262. Such a structure---not detected in the optical---is coupled with a ring of atomic (HI) gas. We want to show that both star-forming and HI rings surrounding this SB0 galaxy share the same radial distance from the galaxy center and spatial orientation. We want also to model the kinematics of the ring(s) and of the galaxy body. We make use of archive FUV and NUV GALEX data plus HI observations from the literature. We …
Context: We introduce the Dwarf Galaxy Survey with Amateur Telescopes (DGSAT) project and report the discovery of eleven low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies in the fields of the nearby galaxies NGC 2683, NGC 3628, NGC 4594 (M104), NGC 4631, NGC 5457 (M101), and NGC 7814. Aims: The DGSAT project aims to use the potential of small-sized telescopes to probe LSB features around large galaxies and to increase the sample size of the dwarf satellite galaxies in the Local Volume. Methods: Using long exposure images, fields of the target spiral galaxies are explored for extended low surface brightnes…
Dwarf satellite galaxies are a key probe of dark matter and of galaxy formation on small scales and of the dark matter halo masses of their central galaxies. They have very low surface brightness, which makes it difficult to identify and study them outside of the Local Group. We used a low surface brightness-optimized telescope, the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, to search for dwarf galaxies in the field of the massive spiral galaxy M101. We identify seven large, low surface brightness objects in this field, with effective radii of \(10 - 30\) arcseconds and central surface brightnesses of \(μ_{g}…
We present the first results of an ongoing campaign using the STIS spectrograph on-board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) whose primary goal is the study of near ultraviolet (UV) spectra of local Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). Using events identified by the Palomar Transient Factory and subsequently verified by ground-based spectroscopy, we demonstrate the ability to locate and classify SNe Ia as early as 16 days prior to maximum light. This enables us to trigger HST in a non-disruptive mode to obtain near UV spectra within a few days of maximum light for comparison with earlier equivalent groun…
The star formation rates for the 230 nearest Markarian galaxies with radial velocities V_LG<3500 km/s have been determined from their far ultraviolet fluxes obtained with the GALEX satellite. We briefly discuss the observed relationship between the star formation rate and other integral parameters of these galaxies: stellar mass, hydrogen mass, morphological type, and activity index. On the average, the Markarian galaxies have reserves of gas that are a factor of two smaller than those of galaxies in the field of the same stellar mass and type. Despite their elevated activity, the specific rat…
We use the Hubble Space Telescope ACS/SBC and Very Large Telescope FORS cameras to observe the Brightest Cluster Galaxies in Abell 2597 and Abell 2204 in the far-ultraviolet (FUV) F150LP and optical U, B, V, R, I Bessel filters. The FUV and U band emission is enhanced in bright, filamentary structures surrounding the BCG nuclei. These filaments can be traced out to 20 kpc from the nuclei in the FUV. Excess FUV and U band light is determined by removing emission due to the underlying old stellar population and mapped with 1 arcsec spatial resolution over the central 20 kpc regions of both galax…
We present an analysis of ultraviolet (UV) emission in the outer regions of a local, volume-limited sample of 56 early-type galaxies, where Hα emission from massive star formation is typically absent. We find excess faint NUV emission in the environments of our early-type galaxies compared to blank sky measured in the same tiles, indicating that the excesses are not due to background contamination. We do not observe corresponding faint FUV excesses. Faint NUV excesses increase with galaxy luminosity and are not correlated with the presence or absence of HI in the environments of these galaxies…
We present an analysis of the relationship between molecular gas and current star formation rate surface density at sub-kpc and kpc scales in a sample of 14 nearby star-forming galaxies. Measuring the relationship in the bright, high molecular gas surface density ($\Shtwo\gtrsim$20 \msunpc) regions of the disks to minimize the contribution from diffuse extended emission, we find an approximately linear relation between molecular gas and star formation rate surface density, $\nmol\sim0.96\pm0.16$, with a molecular gas depletion time $\tdep\sim2.30\pm1.32$ Gyr. We show that, in the molecular reg…
We present samples of starburst galaxies that represent the extremes discovered with infrared and ultraviolet observations, including 25 Markarian galaxies, 23 ultraviolet luminous galaxies discovered with GALEX, and the 50 starburst galaxies having the largest infrared/ultraviolet ratios. These sources have z < 0.5 and cover a luminosity range of ~ 10^4. Comparisons between infrared luminosities determined with the 7.7 um PAH feature and ultraviolet luminosities from the stellar continuum at 153 nm are used to determine obscuration in starbursts and dependence of this obscuration on infrared …
Observations and detections of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) by Cherenkov telescopes are often triggered by information about high flux states in other wavelength bands. To overcome this bias, the VHE gamma-ray telescope MAGIC has conducted dedicated monitoring observations of nearby AGN since 2006. Three well established, TeV-bright blazars were selected to be observed regularly: Mrk 421, Mrk 501, and 1ES1959+650. The goals of these observations are to obtain an unbiased distribution of flux states shedding light on the duty cycle of AGN, to investigate potential spectral changes during period…
The central dominant galaxies in galaxy clusters constitute the most massive and luminous galaxies in the Universe. Despite this, the formation of these brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) and the impact of this on the surrounding cluster environment remain poorly understood. Here we present multi-wavelength observations of the nearby poor X-ray cluster MZ 10451, in which both processes can be studied in unprecedented detail. Chandra observations of the intracluster medium (ICM) in the cluster core, which harbors two optically bright early-type galaxies in the process of merging, show that the s…
We present the results of a ground-based, high spatial resolution infrared 18 micron imaging study of nearby luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs), using the Subaru 8.2-m and Gemini South 8.1-m telescopes. The diffraction-limited images routinely achieved with these telescopes in the Q-band (17-23 micron) allow us to investigate the detailed spatial distribution of infrared emission in these LIRGs. We then investigate whether the emission surface brightnesses are modest, as observed in starbursts, or are so high that luminous active galactic nuclei (AGNs; high emission surface brightness energy s…
The space-ultraviolet wavelength region contains strong spectral lines from massive, hot stars. These features form in winds and are sensitive to luminosity and mass, and ultimately provide constraints on the initial mass function. New radiation-hydrodynamical models of stellar winds are used to construct a theoretical spectral library of massive stars for inclusion in population synthesis. The models are compared to observations of nearby star clusters, of starburst regions in local galaxies, and of distant star-forming galaxies. The data are consistent with a near-universal Salpeter-type ini…
