星系团内的河外恒星贡献了团内光(ICL),该光被认为是潜在暗物质(DM)分布的一种有前景的示踪物。在本研究中,我们采用TNG300模拟来研究从深度、大视场光学图像恢复星系团暗物质分布的前景。为此,我们在z=0.06处为Wendelstein大视场成像仪(WWFI)的g′波段生成了40个大质量星系团(M200≳10^14.5 M⊙)的模拟观测,并遵循观测流程,通过掩蔽卫星星系来分离最亮团星系(BCG)与ICL的辐射。通过将这些图像得到的Σ_BCG+ICL轮廓与中心子晕的Σ_DM轮廓进行比较,我们发现,对于R_Δ=R_200和R_500,Σ_cen-DM/Σ_BCG+ICL在对数空间中与归一化距离r/R_Δ呈现准线性标度关系。该标度的离散主要是随机的,表现出对形成时间和动力学状态的微弱依赖。对于R_200,我们恢复的DM浓度和质量分别在其真实值的约23%和约15%以内;而对于R_500,不确定性大约大3%。此外,我们发现浓度可以利用BCG+ICL占比来估计,中心DM质量可以利用BCG+ICL流量来估计,总DM质量可以利用热辐射流量来估计。这些结果证明了在不久的将来利用Vera C. Rubin天文台等设施观测星系团并推导其暗物质特征的可行性。
英文摘要:
Extragalactic stars within galaxy clusters contribute to the intracluster light (ICL), which is thought to be a promising tracer of the underlying dark matter (DM) distribution. In this study, we employ the TNG300 simulation to investigate the prospect of recovering the dark matter distribution of galaxy clusters from deep, wide-field optical images. For this, we generate mock observations of 40 massive clusters ($M_{200}\gtrsim 10^{14.5}\,{\rm M}_\odot$) at $z=0.06$ for the $g'$ band of the Wendelstein Wide-Field Imager (WWFI), and isolate the emission from the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) and the ICL by masking the satellite galaxies, following observational procedures. By comparing $Σ_{\rm BCG+ICL}$ profiles from these images against $Σ_{\rm DM}$ profiles for the central subhaloes, we find that $Σ_{\rm cen-DM}/Σ_{\rm BCG+ICL}$ exhibits a quasi-linear scaling relation in log space with the normalised distance $r/R_Δ$, for both $R_Δ=R_{200}$ and $R_{500}$. The scatter in the scaling is predominantly stochastic, showing a weak dependence on formation time and dynamical state. We recover the DM concentration and mass within $\approx 23$ and $\approx 15$ per cent of their true values (for $R_{200}$), respectively, and with $\approx 3$ per cent larger uncertainties for $R_{500}$. Alternatively, we find that the concentration can be estimated using the BCG+ICL fraction, the central's DM mass using the BCG+ICL flux, and the total DM mass using the bolometric flux. These results demonstrate the feasibility of deriving dark matter characteristics of galaxy clusters to be observed with facilities like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the near future.
We present a new framework for estimating a galaxy's gravitational potential, Phi(x), from its stellar kinematics by adopting a fully non-parametric model for the galaxy's unknown action-space distribution function, f(J). Having an expression for the joint likelihood of Phi and f, the likelihood of Phi is calculated by using a Dirichlet process mixture to represent the prior on f and marginalising. We demonstrate that modelling machinery constructed using this framework is successful at recovering the potentials of some simple systems from perfect discrete kinematical data, a situation handled…
We present a general modified maximum likelihood (MML) method for inferring generative distribution functions from uncertain and biased data. The MML estimator is identical to, but easier and many orders of magnitude faster to compute than the solution of the exact Bayesian hierarchical modelling of all measurement errors. As a key application, this method can accurately recover the mass function (MF) of galaxies, while simultaneously dealing with observational uncertainties (Eddington bias), complex selection functions and unknown cosmic large-scale structure. The MML method is free of binnin…
We present a non-parametric model for inferring the three-dimensional (3D) distribution of dust density in the Milky Way. Our approach uses the extinction measured towards stars at different locations in the Galaxy at approximately known distances. Each extinction measurement is proportional to the integrated dust density along its line-of-sight. Making simple assumptions about the spatial correlation of the dust density, we can infer the most probable 3D distribution of dust across the entire observed region, including along sight lines which were not observed. This is possible because our mo…
In order to investigate the importance of different proposed quenching mechanisms, we use an indirect method to estimate gas masses for ~62,000 SDSS DR7 galaxies. We infer gas surface densities from dust column densities as traced by extinction within the fibre, applying a metallicity correction to account for varying dust-to-gas ratios. We find that both gas fraction and star formation efficiency (SFE) decrease moving away from the star forming main sequence (MS) towards quiescence for all galaxy masses. We further show that both quantities correlate similarly strongly with the departure from…
How well can we infer host dark matter halo masses of individual galaxies? Based on the halo occupation distribution (HOD) framework, we analytically compute the number of neighboring galaxies within a cylinder of some redshift interval and radius in transverse comoving distance. The result is used to derive the conditional probability distribution function (PDF) of the host halo mass of a galaxy, given the neighboring galaxy counts. We compare our analytic results with those obtained using a realistic mock galaxy catalog, finding reasonable agreements. We find the optimal cylinder radius to b…
We present a novel, observationally-based framework for the formation epochs and sites of globular clusters (GCs) in a cosmological context. Measuring directly the mean ages of the metal-poor and metal-rich GC subpopulations in our own Galaxy, and in other galaxies, is observationally challenging. Here we apply an alternative approach utilising the property that the galaxy mass-metallicity relation is a strong function of redshift (or look-back age) but is relatively insensitive to galaxy mass for massive galaxies. Assuming that GCs follow galaxy mass-metallicity relations that evolve with red…
Massive galaxies are key probes to understand how the baryonic matter evolves within the dark matter halos. We use the "archaeological" approach to infer the stellar population properties and star formation histories of the most massive (M > 10^10.75 Msun) and passive early-type galaxies (ETGs) at 0 < z < 0.3, based on stacked, high signal to noise ratio (SNR), Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra. We exploit the information present in the full-spectrum by means of the STARLIGHT public code to retrieve the ETGs evolutionary properties, such as age, metallicity and star formation history. We find t…
Next-generation surveys will provide photometric and spectroscopic data of millions to billions of galaxies with unprecedented precision. This offers a unique chance to improve our understanding of the galaxy evolution and the unresolved nature of dark matter (DM). At galaxy scales, the density distribution of DM is strongly affected by the astrophysical feedback processes, which are difficult to fully account for in classical techniques to derive mass models. In this work, we explore the capability of supervised learning algorithms to predict the DM content of galaxies from luminous observati…
Inferring Stellar Densities with Flexible Models I: The Distribution of RR Lyrae in the Milky Way with $\textit{Gaia}$ DR3
University of Pennsylvania(宾夕法尼亚大学);Universidad de la República(乌拉圭共和国大学);Flatiron Institute(平顿研究所);Max Planck Institute for Astronomy(马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所);New York University(纽约大学)
University of Chicago(芝加哥大学);Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics(卡夫利宇宙物理研究所);Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory(费米国家加速器实验室)
Measuring the structural parameters (size, total brightness, light concentration, etc.) of galaxies is a significant first step towards a quantitative description of different galaxy populations. In this work, we demonstrate that a Bayesian Neural Network (BNN) can be used for the inference, with uncertainty quantification, of such morphological parameters from simulated low-surface-brightness galaxy images. Compared to traditional profile-fitting methods, we show that the uncertainties obtained using BNNs are comparable in magnitude, well-calibrated, and the point estimates of the parameters …
The properties of the first galaxies, expected to drive the Cosmic Dawn (CD) and the Epoch of Reionization (EoR), are encoded in the 3D structure of the cosmic 21-cm signal. Parameter inference from upcoming 21-cm observations promises to revolutionize our understanding of these unseen galaxies. However, prior inference was done using models with several simplifying assumptions. Here we introduce a flexible, physically-motivated parametrization for high-$z$ galaxy properties, implementing it in the public code 21cmFAST. In particular, we allow their star formation rates and ionizing escape fra…
Inferring Globular Cluster Initial Mass Function from Stellar Streams
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto(加拿大理论天体物理研究所,多伦多大学);Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto(天文学与天体物理学系,多伦多大学)
A fundamental prediction of the LambdaCDM cosmology is the hierarchical build-up of structure and therefore the successive merging of galaxies into more massive ones. As one can only observe galaxies at one specific time in cosmic history, this merger history remains in principle unobservable. By using the TNG100 simulation of the IllustrisTNG project, we show that it is possible to infer the unobservable stellar assembly and merger history of central galaxies from their observable properties by using machine learning techniques. In particular, in this first paper of ERGO-ML (Extracting Realit…
We performed a series of direct N-body simulations with the aim to follow the dynamical evolution of a galaxy cluster (GC) ($M_{clus}\simeq 10^{14} M_{\odot}$) in different environment. The results show the formation of heavy sub-structures in the cluster centre in consequence of multiple merging among the innermost galaxies. Moreover we investigate the dynamics of super-massive black holes (SMBHs) residing in the centre of galaxies that form the most massive sub-structure.
We present the results from a pilot study with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA) to determine the radio morphologies of extended radio sources and the properties of their host-galaxies in 10 massive galaxy clusters at z~1, an epoch in which clusters are assembling rapidly. These clusters are drawn from a parent sample of WISE-selected galaxy clusters that were cross-correlated with the VLA Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters survey (FIRST) to identify extended radio sources within 1$^{\prime}$ of the cluster centers. Out of the ten targeted sources, six are FR II sourc…
The merging history of galaxies can be traced with studies of dynamically close pairs. These consist of a massive primary galaxy and a less massive secondary (or satellite) galaxy. The study of the stellar populations of secondary (lower mass) galaxies in close pairs provides a way to understand galaxy growth by mergers. Here we focus on systems involving at least one massive galaxy - with stellar mass above $10^{11}M_\odot$ in the highly complete GAMA survey. Our working sample comprises 2,692 satellite galaxy spectra (0.1<z<0.3). These spectra are combined into high S/N stacks, and binned ac…
To study the accretion phase for local massive galaxies, we search accreting satellites around a massive compact galaxy (M_*~3.9x10^10Msun), spectroscopically confirmed (z_spec-1.9213) in the eXtreme Deep Field, which has been originally reported in Szomoru et al. We detect 1369 satellite candidates within the projected virial radius (rvir~300 kpc) of the compact galaxy in the all-combined ACS image with 5sigma-limiting magnitude of mACS~30.6 ABmag, which corresponds to ~1.6x10^7M_sun at the redshift. The photometric redshift measured with 12 multi-band images confirms 34 satellites out of the…
Deep ALMA and HST observations reveal the presence of a quenched massive galaxy within the $z=2.91$ galaxy group RO-1001. With a mass-weighted stellar age of $1.6 \pm 0.4 \,$Gyr this galaxy is one of the oldest known at $z\sim3$, implying that most of its $10^{11}\rm \, M_{\odot}$ of stars were rapidly formed at $z>6$--8. This is a unique example of the predominantly passive evolution of a galaxy over at least $3<z<6$ following its high-redshift quenching and a smoking-gun event pointing to the early imprint of an age-environment relation. At the same time, being in a dense group environment w…
We report the discovery of a massive $\log(M/M_\odot)=10.74^{+0.18}_{-0.16}$ galaxy at the same redshift as a carbon-monoxide-bearing sub-damped Lyman $α$ absorber (sub-DLA) seen in the spectrum of QSO J1439+1117. The galaxy, J1439B, is located 4\farcs7 from the QSO sightline, a projected distance of 38 physical kpc at $z=2.4189$, and exhibits broad optical emission lines ($σ_{\rm{[O III]}}=303 \pm 12$~\kms) with ratios characteristic of excitation by an active galactic nucleus (AGN). The galaxy has a factor of $\sim$9 lower star formation than is typical of star-forming galaxies of the same m…
Massive galaxies are thought to form in two phases: an initial, early collapse of gas and giant burst of central star formation, followed by the later accretion of material that builds up their stellar and dark matter haloes. The globular cluster systems of such galaxies are believed to form in a similar manner. The initial central burst forms metal-rich (red) clusters, while more metal-poor (blue) clusters are brought in by the later accretion of less massive satellites. This formation process is thought to lead the creation of the multimodal optical colour distributions seen in the globular …
We report a massive quiescent galaxy at $z_{\rm spec}=3.0922^{+0.008}_{-0.004}$ spectroscopically confirmed at a protocluster in the SSA22 field by detecting the Balmer and Ca {\footnotesize II} absorption features with multi-object spectrometer for infrared exploration (MOSFIRE) on the Keck I telescope. This is the most distant quiescent galaxy confirmed in a protocluster to date. We fit the optical to mid-infrared photometry and spectrum simultaneously with spectral energy distribution (SED) models of parametric and nonparametric star formation histories (SFH). Both models fit the observed S…
The existence of massive galaxies lacking a classical bulge has often been proposed as a challenge to $Λ$CDM. However, recent simulations propose that a fraction of massive disc galaxies might have had very quiescent merger histories, and also that mergers do not necessarily build classical bulges. We test these ideas with deep MUSE observations of NGC 5746, a massive ($\sim 10^{11}$ M$_\odot$) edge-on disc galaxy with no classical bulge. We analyse its stellar kinematics and stellar populations, and infer that a massive and extended disc formed very early: 80% of the galaxy's stellar mass for…
We present spectra of the most massive quiescent galaxy yet discovered at $z>3$, spectroscopically confirmed via the detection of Balmer absorption features in the $H-$ and $K-$bands of Keck/MOSFIRE. The spectra confirm a galaxy with no significant ongoing star formation, consistent with the lack of rest-frame UV flux and overall photometric spectral energy distribution. With a stellar mass of $3.1^{+0.1}_{-0.2} \times 10^{11} ~\rm{M}_\odot$ at $z = 3.493$, this galaxy is nearly three times more massive than the highest redshift spectroscopically confirmed absorption-line identified galaxy kno…
We report direct evidence of pre-processing of the galaxies residing in galaxy groups falling into galaxy clusters drawn from the Local Cluster Substructure Survey (LoCuSS). 34 groups have been identified via their X-ray emission in the infall regions of 23 massive ($\rm \langle M_{200}\rangle = 10^{15}\,M_{\odot}$) clusters at $0.15<z<0.3$. Highly complete spectroscopic coverage combined with 24 $\rmμ$m imaging from Spitzer allows us to make a consistent and robust selection of cluster and group members including star forming galaxies down to a stellar mass limit of $\rm M_{\star} = 2\times10…
The three-dimensional (3-D) shape of a galaxy inevitably is tied to how it has formed and evolved and to its dark matter halo. Local extremely metal-poor galaxies (XMPs; defined as having an average gas-phase metallicity < 0.1 solar) are important objects for understanding galaxy evolution largely because they appear to be caught in the act of accreting gas from the cosmic web, and their 3-D shape may reflect this. Here we report on the 3-D shape of XMPs as inferred from their observed projected minor-to-major axial ratios using a hierarchical Bayesian inference model, which determines the lik…
The Galaxy appears to be richer in young, massive stellar clusters than previously known, due to advances in infrared surveys which have uncovered deeply embedded regions of star formation. Young, massive clusters can significantly impact the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM) and hence radio observations can also be an important tracer of their activity. Several hundred cluster candidates are now known by examining survey data. Here we report on multiwavelength observations of six of these candidates in the Galaxy. We carried out 4.9 and 8.5 GHz VLA observations of the radio emission assoc…
We introduce the largest to date survey of massive quiescent galaxies at redshift z~1.6. With these data, which cover 27.6 deg^2, we can find significant numbers of very rare objects such as ultra-massive quiescent galaxies that populate the extreme massive end of the galaxy mass function, or dense environments that are likely to become present-day massive galaxy clusters. In this paper, the first in a series, we apply our gzK adaptation of the BzK technique to select our z~1.6 galaxy catalog and then study the quiescent galaxy stellar mass function with good statistics over M_stars ~ 10^10.2 …
Mergers of gas-poor galaxies, so-called dry mergers, may play a fundamental role in the assembly of the most massive galaxies, and therefore, in galaxy formation theories. Using the SDSS, we have serendipitously discovered a rare system in the observational and theoretical context, possibly a quintuple dry merger at low redshift. As a follow-up, we have obtained NOT long-slit spectra of the group, in order to measure the individual redshifts and gain insight into its merger fate. Our results show an isolated, low-redshift galaxy group consisting of massive, quiescent, early-type galaxies, comp…
We search the lambda = 1.1 mm Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey for clumps containing sufficient mass to form ~10^4 M\odot star clusters. 18 candidate massive proto-clusters are identified in the first Galactic quadrant outside of the central kiloparsec. This sample is complete to clumps with mass M(clump) > 10^4 M_sun and radius r < 2.5 pc. The overall Galactic massive cluster formation rate is CFR(M_cluster > 10^4) ~ 5 Myr^-1, which is in agreement with the rates inferred from Galactic open clusters and M31 massive clusters. We find that all massive proto-clusters in the first quadrant are activ…
We propose the formation of massive pristine dark-matter (DM) halos with masses of $\sim 10^8~M_\odot$, due to the dynamical effects of frequent mergers in rare regions of the Universe with high baryonic streaming velocity relative to DM. Since the streaming motion prevents gas collapse into DM halos and delays prior star formation episodes, the gas remains metal-free until the halo virial temperatures $\gtrsim 2\times 10^4~{\rm K}$. The minimum cooling mass of DM halos is boosted by a factor of $\sim 10-30$ because frequent major mergers of halos further inhibit gas collapse. We use Monte Car…
Galaxies and massive black holes (BHs) presumably grow via galactic merging events and subsequent BH coalescence. As a case study, we investigate the merging event between the Andromeda galaxy (M31) and a satellite galaxy. We compute the expected observational appearance of the massive BH that was at the center of the satellite galaxy prior to the merger, and is currently wandering in the M31 halo. We demonstrate that a radiatively inefficient accretion flow with a bolometric luminosity of a few tens of solar luminosities develops when Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion onto the BH is assumed. We compu…
Massive relic galaxies formed the bulk of their stellar component before z~2 and have remained unaltered since then. Therefore, they represent a unique opportunity to study in great detail the frozen stellar population properties of those galaxies that populated the primitive Universe. We have combined optical to near-infrared line-strength indices in order to infer, out to 1.5 Reff, the IMF of the nearby relic massive galaxy NGC 1277. The IMF of this galaxy is bottom-heavy at all radii, with the fraction of low-mass stars being at least a factor of two larger than that found in the Milky Way.…
Recent simulations and observations of massive galaxy cluster evolution predict that the majority of stellar mass build up happens within cluster members by $z=2$, before cluster virialization. Protoclusters rich with dusty, star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) at $z>3$ are the favored candidate progenitors for these massive galaxy clusters at $z\sim0$. We present here the first study analyzing stellar emission along with cold dust and gas continuum emission in a spectroscopically confirmed $z=4.002$ protocluster core rich with DSFGs, the Distant Red Core (DRC). We combine new HST and Spitzer data wi…
Massive disk galaxies like the Milky Way are expected to form at late times in traditional models of galaxy formation, but recent numerical simulations suggest that such galaxies could form as early as a billion years after the Big Bang through the accretion of cold material and mergers. Observationally, it has been difficult to identify disk galaxies in emission at high redshift, in order to discern between competing models of galaxy formation. Here we report imaging, with a resolution of about 1.3 kiloparsecs, of the 158-micrometre emission line from singly ionized carbon, the far-infrared d…
Massive Early-Type Galaxies (ETGs) show several strong CO absorption features in their H- and K-band spectra that cannot be explained by state-of-the-art stellar population models. For many years, the disagreement has been attributed to the presence of intermediate-age stellar components that are dominated by stars in the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) phase. However, no robust evidence of this scenario has been provided so far. One way to test this claim is by comparison of CO indices for ETGs and for relic galaxies. Lacking the intermediate-age stellar populations, relic galaxies provide us w…
The morphology of massive star-forming galaxies at high redshift is often dominated by giant clumps of mass ~10^8-10^9 Msun and size ~100-1000 pc. Previous studies have proposed that giant clumps might have an important role in the evolution of their host galaxy, particularly in building the central bulge. However, this depends on whether clumps live long enough to migrate from their original location in the disc or whether they get disrupted by their own stellar feedback before reaching the centre of the galaxy. We use cosmological hydrodynamical simulations from the FIRE (Feedback in Realist…
We take advantage of the statistical power of the large-volume dark-matter-only Millennium simulation, combined with a sophisticated semi-analytic galaxy formation model, to explore whether the recently reported $z=3.7$ quiescent galaxy ZF-COSMOS-20115 (ZF; Glazebrook et al. 2017) can be accommodated in current galaxy formation models. In our model, a population of quiescent galaxies (QGs) with stellar masses and star formation rates comparable to those of ZF naturally emerges at redshifts $z<4$. There are two and five ZF analogues at the redshift $3.86$ and $3.58$ in the Millennium simulation…
Spatially-resolved spectroscopy of the environments of explosive transients carries detailed information about the physical properties of the stellar population that gave rise to the explosion, and thus the progenitor itself. Here, we present new observations of ESO184-G82, the galaxy hosting the archetype of the $γ$-ray burst/supernova connection, GRB 980425/SN 1998bw, obtained with the integral-field spectrograph MUSE mounted at the Very Large Telescope. These observations have yielded detailed maps of emission-line strength for various nebular lines, as well as physical parameters such as d…
The average stellar mass (Mstar) of high-mass galaxies (Mstar > 3e11 Msun) is expected to grow by ~30% since z~1, largely through ongoing mergers that are also invoked to explain the observed increase in galaxy sizes. Direct evidence for the corresponding growth in stellar mass has been elusive, however, in part because the volumes sampled by previous redshift surveys have been too small to yield reliable statistics. In this work, we make use of the Stripe 82 Massive Galaxy Catalog to build a mass-limited sample of 41,770 galaxies (Mstar > 1.6e11) with optical to near-IR photometry and a large…
We investigate the properties of young massive clusters (YMCs) in a galaxy-galaxy merger remnant by analyzing the data obtained by a gas rich major merger simulations in Matsui et al. 2012. We found that the YMCs are distributed at a few $\rm kpc$ and at $\sim 10~{\rm kpc}$ from the galactic center, in other words, there are two components of their distribution. The former are formed in filamentary and turbulent gas generated at a few $\rm kpc$ from the center because of galaxy encounters, and the latter are formed in tidal tails which are far from the center. The YMCs are much less concentrat…
We present the first stellar velocity dispersion measurement of a massive quenching galaxy at z=4.01. The galaxy is first identified as a massive z>~4 galaxy with suppressed star formation from photometric redshifts based on deep multi-band data in the UKIDSS Ultra Deep Survey field. A follow-up spectroscopic observation with MOSFIRE on Keck revealed strong multiple absorption features, which are identified as Balmer absorption lines, giving a secure redshift of z=4.01. Thanks to the high S/N of the spectrum, we are able to estimate the stellar velocity dispersion, sigma=268+/-59 km/s. This ve…
The largest galaxies in the Universe reside in galaxy clusters. Using sensitive observations of carbon-monoxide, we show that the Spiderweb Galaxy -a massive galaxy in a distant protocluster- is forming from a large reservoir of molecular gas. Most of this molecular gas lies between the protocluster galaxies and has low velocity dispersion, indicating that it is part of an enriched inter-galactic medium. This may constitute the reservoir of gas that fuels the widespread star formation seen in earlier ultraviolet observations of the Spiderweb Galaxy. Our results support the notion that giant ga…
We investigate the effect of environment on the presence and fuelling of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) by identifying galaxies hosting AGN in massive galaxy clusters and the fields around them. We have identified AGN candidates via optical variability (178), X-ray emission (74), and mid-IR SEDs (64) in multi- wavelength surveys covering regions centered on 12 galaxy clusters at redshifts 0.5 < z < 0.9. In this paper, we present the radial distribution of AGN in clusters to examine how local environment affects the presence of an AGN and its host galaxy. While distributions vary from cluster to …
When the cosmic star formation history peaks (z ~ 2), galaxies vigorously fed by cosmic reservoirs are gas dominated and contain massive star-forming clumps, thought to form by violent gravitational instabilities in highly turbulent gas-rich disks. However, a clump formation event has not been witnessed yet, and it is debated whether clumps survive energetic feedback from young stars, thus migrating inwards to form galaxy bulges. Here we report spatially resolved spectroscopy of a bright off-nuclear emission line region in a galaxy at z = 1.987. Although this region dominates the star formatio…
The process by which massive galaxies transition from blue, star-forming disks into red, quiescent galaxies remains one of the most poorly-understood aspects of galaxy evolution. In this investigation, we attempt to gain a better understanding of how star formation is quenched by focusing on a massive post-starburst galaxy at z = 0.747. The target has a high stellar mass and a molecular gas fraction of ~30% -- unusually high for its low star formation rate. We look for indicators of star formation suppression mechanisms in the stellar kinematics and age distribution of the galaxy obtained from…
Star formation in galaxies at the center of cooling-flow galaxy clusters is an important phenomenon in the context of formation and evolution of massive galaxies in the Universe. Yet, star formation rates (SFRs) in such systems continue to be elusive. We use our Bayesian-motivated spectral energy distribution (SED)-fitting code, BAYESCOOL, to estimate the plausible SFR values in the brightest cluster galaxy of a massive, X-ray luminous galaxy cluster, Phoenix. Previous studies of Phoenix have resulted in the highest measurement of SFR for any galaxy, with the estimates reaching up to 1000 sola…
A massive and evolved slow-rotating galaxy in the early Universe
University of California, Davis(加州大学戴维斯分校);York University(约克大学);Tufts University(塔夫茨大学);University of Toronto(多伦多大学);University of California, Riverside(加州大学河滨分校);University of California, Irvine(加州大学尔湾分校);W. M. Keck Observatory(W·M·凯克天文台);Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München(慕尼黑大学)