We study dwarf galaxies in the Centaurus A group to investigate their metallicity and possible environmental effects. The Centaurus A group (at ~4 Mpc from the Milky Way) contains about 50 known dwarf companions of different morphologies and stellar contents, thus making it a very interesting target to study how these galaxies evolve. Here we present results for the early-type dwarf galaxy population in this group. We use archival HST/ACS data to study the resolved stellar content of 6 galaxies, together with isochrones from the Dartmouth stellar evolutionary models. We derive photometric metallicity distribution functions of stars on the upper red giant branch via isochrone interpolation. The 6 galaxies are moderately metal-poor (<[Fe/H]>=-1.56 to -1.08), and metallicity spreads are observed (internal dispersions of sigma_[Fe/H]=0.10 to 0.41 dex). We also investigate the possible presence of intermediate-age stars, and discuss how these affect our results. The dwarfs exhibit flat to weak radial metallicity gradients. For the two most luminous, most metal-rich galaxies, we find statistically significant evidence for at least two stellar subpopulations: the more metal-rich stars are found in the center of the galaxies, while the metal-poor ones are more broadly distributed within the galaxies. We find no clear trend of the derived physical properties as a function of (present-day) galaxy position in the group, which may be due to the small sample we investigate. We compare our results to the early-type dwarf population of the Local Group, and find no outstanding differences, despite the fact that the Centaurus A group is a denser environment that is possibly in a more advanced dynamical stage.
The flattened, possibly co-rotating plane of satellite galaxies around Centaurus A, if more than a fortuitous alignment, adds to the pre-existing tension between the well-studied Milky Way and M31 planes and the $Λ$CDM model of structure formation. It was recently reported that the Centaurus A satellite plane (CASP) may be rotationally supported, but a further understanding of the system's kinematics is elusive in the absence of full three-dimensional velocities. We constrain the transverse velocities of 27 satellites that would rotationally stabilise the Centaurus A plane, and classify the sa…
HR-pyPopStar II: high spectral resolution evolutionary synthesis models low metallicity expansion and the properties of the stellar populations of dwarf galaxies
Max-Planck Institut für Astrophysik(马克斯·普朗克天体物理研究所);Departamento de Investigación Básica, CIEMAT(基础研究部,CIEMAT);Centro de Astrobiologí´a (CSIC/INTA)(天文生物学中心(CSIC/INTA));FRACTAL S.L.N.E.
Motivated by the observed bottom-light initial mass function (IMF) in faint dwarfs, we study how a metallicity-dependent IMF affects the feedback budget and observables of an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy. We model the evolution of a low-mass ($\approx 8 \, \times \, 10^{8} \, \rm M_{\odot}$) dark matter halo with cosmological, zoomed hydrodynamical simulations capable of resolving individual supernovae explosions, which we complement with an empirically motivated subgrid prescription for systematic IMF variations. In this framework, at the low gas metallicities typical of faint dwarfs, the IMF of …