The oxygen abundances for four dwarf spiral galaxies have been determined using long-slit spectroscopy. The abundances of these galaxies have not previously reported in the literature. Several HII regions were detected in each galaxy. The electronic temperature method could be used only in one region because of the lack of the auroral lines of oxygen or sulfur. Therefore, four different semi empirical methods were used in the abundance determinations and a weighted-average abundance is obtained. The abundances of three of the galaxies are sub solar for all the regions, one of them having a very low metallicity. Only three HII regions in the fourth galaxy show slightly over solar abundances. Three of the HII regions might have a PN embedded. A comparison with the oxygen abundances among different types of late-type galaxies (BCG, LSBG, dI, Sm) is made. The conclusion is that all of them show the same range in metallicity. Also, the log(N/O) is similar, showing a secondary behaviour for abundances larger than 8.2 dex in spite of the morphological type of the mother galaxy.
Spectroscopic observations of 63 HII regions in six spiral galaxies (NGC 628, NGC 783, NGC 2336, NGC 6217, NGC 7331, and NGC 7678) were carried out with the 6-meter telescope (BTA) of Russian Special Astrophysical Observatory with the Spectral Camera attached to the focal reducer SCORPIO in the multislit mode with a dispersion of 2.1A/pixel and a spectral resolution of 10A. These observations were used to estimate the oxygen and nitrogen abundances and the electron temperatures in HII regions through the recent variant of the strong line method (NS calibration). The parameters of the radial di…
Spatially-resolved information of gas-phase emission provided by integral field units (IFUs) are allowing us to perform a new generation of emission-line surveys, based on large samples of HII regions and full two-dimensional coverage. Here we present two highlights of our current studies employing this technique: 1) A statistical approach to the abundance gradients of spiral galaxies, which indicates an -universal- radial gradient for oxygen abundance; and 2) The discovery of a new scaling relation of HII regions in spiral galaxies, the "local" mass-metallicity relation of star-forming galaxi…
The oxygen gradient of four dS galaxies has been determined using abundances for several HII regions determined with four different methods. The gradient slopes of the three non-barred galaxies in the sample are quite steep, larger than -0.2 dex/kpc, while the gradient of the barred galaxy is shallower, only -0.1 dex/kpc. Although these gradients are quite steep they are real, following all the galaxies the same trend. Moreover, the results obtained here agree with those marked by the late-type, non-dwarf spirals, particularly the relationship between the gradient and the absolute magnitude an…
We present results from Keck/NIRSPEC and Magellan/MMIRS follow-up spectroscopy of Lya emitters (LAEs) at z=2.2 identified in our Subaru narrowband survey. We successfully detect Ha emission from seven LAEs, and perform a detailed analysis of six LAEs free from AGN activity, two out of which, CDFS-3865 and COSMOS-30679, have [OII] and [OIII] line detections. They are the first [OII]-detected LAEs at high-z, and their [OIII]/[OII] ratios and R23-indices provide the first simultaneous determinations of ionization parameter and oxygen abundance for LAEs. CDFS-3865 has a very high ionization parame…
In a galaxy cluster, the evolution of spiral galaxies depends on their cluster environment. Ram pressure due to the rapid motion of a spiral galaxy within the hot intracluster medium removes the galaxy's interstellar medium from the outer disk. Once the gas has left the disk, star formation stops. The passive evolution of the stellar populations should be detectable in optical spectroscopy and multi-wavelength photometry. The goal of our study is to recover the stripping age of the Virgo spiral galaxy NGC 4388, i.e. the time elapsed since the halt of star formation in the outer galactic disk u…
We analyse the oxygen abundance and specific star formation rates (sSFR) variations with redshift in star-forming SDSS galaxies of different masses. We find that the maximum value of the sSFR, sSFRmax, decreases when the stellar mass, Ms, of a galaxy increases, and decreases with decreasing of redshift. The sSFRmax can exceed the time-averaged sSFR by about an order of magnitude for massive galaxies. The metallicity - redshift relations for subsamples of galaxies with sSFR = sSFRmax and with sSFR = 0.1sSFRmax coincide for massive (log(Ms/Mo) > 10.5, with stellar mass Ms in solar units) galaxie…
We present the results of spectroscopy of 39 H II regions in the spiral galaxy NGC 6946. The spectral observations were carried out at the 6-m BTA telescope of the SAO RAS with the SCORPIO focal reducer in the multi-slit mode with the dispersion of 2.1A/px and spectral resolution of 10A. The absorption estimates for 39 H II regions were obtained. Using the "strong line" method (NS-calibration) we determined the electron temperature, and the abundances of oxygen and nitrogen for 30 H II regions. The radial gradients of O/H and N/H were constructed.
We compare the Hubble type and the spectroscopic class of the galaxies with spectra in SDSS/DR7. As it is long known, elliptical galaxies tend to be red whereas spiral galaxies tend to be blue, however, this relationship presents a large scatter, which we measure and quantify in detail. We compare the Automatic Spectroscopic K-means based classification (ASK) with most of the commonly used morphological classifications. All of them provide consistent results. Given a spectral class, the morphological type wavers with a standard deviation between 2 and 3 T types, and the same large dispersion c…
Lenticular galaxies have long been thought of as evolved spirals, but the processes involved to quench the star formation are still unclear. By studying the individual star formation histories of the bulges and disks of lenticulars, it is possible to look for clues to the processes that triggered their transformation from spirals. To accomplish this feat, we present a new method for spectroscopic bulge-disk decomposition, in which a long-slit spectrum is decomposed into two one-dimensional spectra representing purely the bulge and disk light. We present preliminary results from applying this m…
A new generation of wide-field emission-line surveys based on integral field units (IFU) is allowing us to obtain spatially resolved information of the gas-phase emission in nearby late-type galaxies, based on large samples of HII regions and full two-dimensional coverage.These observations are allowing us to discover and characterise abundance differentials between galactic substructures and new scaling relations with global physical properties. Here I review some highlights of our current studies employing this technique: (1) the case study of NGC 628, the largest galaxy ever sampled with an…
(abridged) We present 8.2m VLT spectroscopic observations of 28 HII regions in 16 emission-line galaxies and 3.6m ESO telescope spectroscopic observations of 38 HII regions in 28 emission-line galaxies. These emission-line galaxies were selected mainly from the Data Release 6 (DR6) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) as metal-deficient galaxy candidates. We collect photometric and high-quality spectroscopic data for a large uniform sample of star forming galaxies including new observations. Our aim is to study the luminosity-metallicity (L-Z) relation for nearby galaxies, especially at its …
The oxygen abundance gradients among nebular emission line regions in spiral galaxies have been used as important constraints for models of chemical evolution. We present the largest ever full-wavelength optical spectroscopic sample of emission line nebulae in a spiral galaxy (M31). We have collected spectra of 253 HII regions and 407 planetary nebulae with the Hectospec multi-fiber spectrograph of the MMT. We measure the line-of-sight extinction for 199 HII regions and 333 PNe; we derive oxygen abundance directly, based on the electron temperature, for 51 PNe; and we use strong line methods t…
Although relatively common in the local Universe, only one grand-design spiral galaxy has been spectroscopically confirmed to lie at z>2 (HDFX 28; z=2.011), and may prove to be a major merger that simply resembles a spiral in projection. The rarity of spirals has been explained as a result of disks being dynamically 'hot' at z>2 which may instead favor the formation of commonly-observed clumpy structures. Alternatively, current instrumentation may simply not be sensitive enough to detect spiral structures comparable to those in the modern Universe. At redshifts <2, the velocity dispersion of d…
Low resolution ESO VLT/FORS spectra of blue supergiant stars are analyzed to determine stellar metallicities (based on elements such as Fe, Ti, Mg) in the extended disk of the spiral galaxy NGC3621. Mildly subsolar metallicity (-0.30 dex) is found for the outer objects beyond 7 kpc independent of galactocentric radius and compatible with the absence of a metallicity gradient confirming the results of a recent investigation of interstellar medium HII region gas oxygen abundances. The stellar metallicities are slightly higher than those from the HII regions when based on measurements of the weak…
In order to better understand the impact of the bar on the evolution of spiral galaxies, we measure the properties of giant HII regions and the bar in the SB(s)b galaxy NGC5430. We use two complementary data sets, both obtained at the Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic: a hyperspectral data cube from the imaging Fourier transform spectrograph SpIOMM, and high-resolution spectra across the bar from a long-slit spectrograph. We flux-calibrate SpIOMM spectra for the first time, and produce Hα and [NII]λ6584Å intensity maps from which we identify 51 giant HII regions in the spiral arms and bar. We eval…
We present observations of the Type Ic supernova (SN Ic) 2011bm spanning a period of about one year. The data establish that SN 2011bm is a spectroscopically normal SN Ic with moderately low ejecta velocities and with a very slow spectroscopic and photometric evolution (more than twice as slow as SN 1998bw). The Pan-STARRS1 retrospective detection shows that the rise time from explosion to peak was 40 days in the R band. Through an analysis of the light curve and the spectral sequence, we estimate a kinetic energy of 7-17 foe and a total ejected mass of 7-17 Mo, 5-10 Mo of which is oxygen and …
We study two M 51-type systems Arp 68 and Arp 58, which strongly differ by their stellar masses, gas content and environment. Long-slit spectral observations obtained at the 6-m telescope BTA were used to trace the distributions of a line-of-sight (LOS) velocity and a gas-phase oxygen abundance along the spectral cuts. Two systems are compared by their observed properties. We found a very strong large-scale non-circular motion of gas in both systems and a kpc-size saw-edged velocity profile along the tidal spiral arm of Arp 68, probably caused by the gas outflow due to the stellar feedback. A …
(Abridged) We have obtained new spectrophotometric data for 28 HII regions in the spiral galaxy NGC 300, a member of the nearby Sculptor Group. The detection of auroral lines, including [OIII]4363, [SIII]6312 and [NII]5755, has allowed us to measure electron temperatures and direct chemical abundances for the whole sample. We determine for the first time in this galaxy a radial gas-phase oxygen abundance gradient based solely on auroral lines, and obtain the following least-square solution: 12+log(O/H)=8.57-0.41 R/R25, where the galactocentric distance is expressed in terms of the isophotal ra…
The relative contribution of baryons and dark matter to the inner regions of spiral galaxies provides critical clues to their formation and evolution, but it is generally difficult to determine. For spiral galaxies that are strong gravitational lenses, however, the combination of lensing and kinematic observations can be used to break the disk-halo degeneracy. In turn, such data constrain fundamental parameters such as i) the mass density profile slope and axis ratio of the dark matter halo, and by comparison with dark matter-only numerical simulations the modifications imposed by baryons; ii)…
We present chemical evolution models of the Galactic disk with different Z-dependent yields. We find that a moderate mass loss rate for massive stars of solar metallicity produces an excellent fit to the observed C/H and C/O gradients of the Galactic disk. The best model also fits: the H, He, C, and O abundances derived from recombination lines of M17, the protosolar abundances,and the C/O-O/H, C/Fe-Fe/H, and O/Fe-Fe/H relations derived from solar vicinity stars. The agreement of the model with the protosolar abundances implies that the Sun originated at a galactocentric distance similar to th…
