Browsing by Subject "Galaxies"
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Item Estimating the ages of early-type galaxies(2005) Wolf, Marsha Jo; Hill, Gary; Gebhardt, KarlItem Exploring the limits of star formation from the extreme environment of galaxy interactions to the Milky Way(2012-12) Heiderman, Amanda Lea; Evans, Neal J.; Gebhardt, Karl; Milosavljevic, Milos; Hill, Gary; Calzetti, Daniela; Papovich, CaseyIn this thesis, I explore the rate at which molecular gas is converted to stars through detailed studies of a sample of molecular clouds in the Milky Way, IFU spatially resolved observations of gas-rich nearby interacting galaxies, as well as the environmental dependence of star formation and galaxy morphology in a galaxy supercluster. This thesis is composed of three individual projects that investigate nearby star formation within the local 500 pc of our Sun, to neighboring extreme star forming environments of interacting starburst galaxies, and finally studying how star formation varies with galaxy morphology in a galaxy supercluster a z~0.165. I discuss the relation between the star formation rate (SFR) and molecular gas surface densities (e.g., Schmidt-Kennicutt relation) in Galactic star forming regions and find there is a discrepancy between my study and extragalactic relations. The discrepancy is attributed to extragalactic measurements that are averaged over large >kpc scales and include star forming molecular gas (above some threshold) and molecular gas the is not dense enough to form stars. I find a steep increase in the Galactic SFR-gas surface density relation indicative of a threshold for efficient star formation that is best fit to a broken power law with a linear slope above 129 Msun pc⁻². I introduce the VIRUS-P Investigation of the eXtreme ENviroments of Starbursts (VIXENS) project which is a survey of interacting is a large integral field unit survey of nearby infrared bright (L_IR>3x10¹⁰ Lsun) interacting/starburst galaxies. The main goal of VIXENS is to investigate the relation between star formation and gas content on spatially resolved scales of ~0.1-1 kpc in the extreme star forming environments of interacting/starburst galaxies. The VIXENS sample is composed of systems in a range interaction stages with morphological signatures from early phase (close pairs) to late stage mergers (single system with multiple nuclei), SFRs, and gas surface densities. I highlight the first results from the VIXENS survey in the late interaction phase galaxy merger Arp 299. I find 1.3 kpc regions in Arp 299 to lie along the SFR-gas surface density relation found for mergers at high redshift, but this relation is highly dependent on the CO to molecular hydrogen (H₂) conversion factor. I find evidence for a Galactic CO-to-H₂ conversion factor using metallicity and dust temperature measurements, which would place 1.3 kpc regions in the Arp 299 merger in between the high redshift and Kennicutt-Schmidt relations. Comparing the SFR to dense gas surface densities as traced by HCN and HCO⁺, I find an agreement between the spatially resolved measurements and that found on global scales in spirals and (ultra)luminous infrared galaxies. Finally, I present an investigation of the influence of environment on frequency, distribution, color, and star formation properties of galaxy mergers and non-interacting galaxies in the Abell 901/902 supercluster at z~0.165. I find galaxy mergers be preferentially blue in color and have an enhanced SFR by a factor of ~2 compared to non-interacting galaxies. This result may be due to a decrease in galaxy velocity dispersion in the cluster outskirt, favoring galaxy-galaxy interactions, or to interacting galaxies that are part of groups or field galaxies being accreted along cosmological filaments by the clusters. I compare to N-body simulations of groups and field galaxies accreting onto the clusters and find the fraction of mergers are similar to that predicated at group overdensities. I find the SFR of galaxies in the supercluster to be depressed compared to field galaxies in both the core and cluster outskirts, suggesting that an environmental process such as ram pressure stripping is effective throughout the cluster. The results of a modest SFR enhancement and a low merger fraction culminate in my finding that mergers contribute only a small fraction (between 10% and 15%) of the total SFR density of the Abell 901/902 clusters.Item Galaxy proto-clusters as an interface between structure, cluster, and galaxy formation(2016-05) Chiang, Yi-Kuan; Gebhardt, Karl; Overzier, Roderik; Jogee, Shardha; Milosavljevic, Milos; Finkelstein, Steven; Ouchi, MasamiProto-clusters, the distant progenitor large-scale structures of present day galaxy clusters, represent a key phase of cluster growth during which most of the galaxies were still rapidly forming stars. They are potentially powerful cosmological probes, and are unique laboratories to study dark matter assembly, the cosmic baryon cycle, and the environmental impact on galaxy evolution. Albeit its pivotal role in understanding cluster formation, only a small and heterogeneous sample of proto-clusters has been observed to date. Theoretical characterizations have also remained relatively unexplored. In this dissertation, I present baseline models, detailed theory predictions, and broad observational applications of proto-clusters using state-of-the-art numerical simulations and deep-wide galaxy surveys. A dual focus of both structure formation and galaxy evolution is given throughout the thesis. To prepare for large statistical studies in upcoming surveys like the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), the Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) survey, and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) survey, I develop key machinery to connect the main observables of proto-clusters with dark matter structure formation using simulations as a guide. In Chapter 2 and 3, I present, for the first time, a thorough analysis of the main properties of proto-clusters using ~3000 clusters in a set of cosmological N-body simulations and semi-analytic galaxy models. I characterize the growth of proto-clusters and their core halos in size and mass with cosmic time. I show that the progenitor regions of galaxy clusters can already be identified in galaxy surveys at very early times (at least up to z~5), provided that the galaxy overdensities are measured on a sufficiently large scale (5--30 Mpc comoving) and with sufficient statistics. I present the overdensities in matter, dark matter halos, and galaxies as functions of present-day cluster mass, redshift, bias, and selection window size that can be used to interpret the wide range of structures found in real surveys. A table of proto-cluster candidates selected from the literature is provided, and I discuss their properties in light of our simulation predictions. In Chapter 4 I report the discovery of a large sample of proto-cluster candidates in the 1.62 deg^2 COSMOS/UltraVISTA field traced by optical/infrared selected galaxies with photometric redshifts. By comparing properly smoothed three-dimensional galaxy density maps of the observations and a set of matched simulations incorporating the main observational effects, I found 36 candidate structures at 1.610^14} M_sun. With solely photometric redshifts, I successfully rediscover two spectroscopically confirmed structures in this field, suggesting that our algorithm is robust. This work is the first large sample of uniformly selected proto-cluster candidates, providing rich targets for spectroscopic follow-up and subsequent studies of cluster formation. Because of the need of precise galaxy redshifts for density mapping and the prevalence of star formation before quenching, nearly all the proto-clusters known to date were confirmed by spectroscopy of galaxies with strong emission lines. In Chapter 5 I develop a semi-empirical model for Lya escape and generate a set of mock Lya emitter catalogs. This formalism provides a realistic modeling of the galaxy bias, the scatter of the bias, and the stochasticity of the galaxy-dark matter halo connection, which has an enormous potential for studies of the large-scale structure at high redshift. The model suggests that there are two distinct regimes to power a Lya emitter. For massive galaxies, Lya emitters are preferentially less dusty and slightly less metal enriched, while their ages and star formation rates are indistinguishable from other star-forming galaxies of the same mass. In contrast, low mass Lya emitters M_star<10^9 M_sun) are dominated by young objects with recent or ongoing starburst, with a gas phase metallicity diluted by cold accretion. In Chapter 6 I report a newly discovered large-scale structure at z=2.44 in the HETDEX Pilot Survey. On a scale of a few tens of (comoving) Mpc, this structure shows a complex overdensity of Lya emitters, which coincides with broad-band selected galaxies in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA photometric and zCOSMOS spectroscopic catalogs, as well as overdensities of intergalactic gas revealed by Lya absorption maps. I use the mock Lya emitter catalogs constructed in Chapter 5 to predict the cosmic evolution of this structure, and confirm that part of the structure will collapse to form a galaxy cluster with 10^14.5+-0.4 M_sun by z=0. The galaxies inside this structure have a higher median stellar mass than those outside the structure. The overdense region also shows a boost in the number of extended Lya nebulae, and a marginal excess of active galactic nuclei relative to the field, supporting a scenario of accelerated galaxy evolution in cluster progenitors. Building upon the success of finding and characterizing the z=2.44 proto-cluster in the HETDEX Pilot Survey, in Chapter 7 I use the same mock Lya emitter catalogs to evaluate the baseline performance of a large proto-cluster search in the upcoming HETDEX survey. Based on the correlation between galaxy overdensity and the z=0 descendant halo mass calibrated in the simulation, I predict that several hundred 1.910^14.5 M_sun will be discovered in the 8.5 Gpc^3 of space surveyed by HETDEX. This sample will open up a rich, new area of statistical investigations of both structure formation and galaxy evolution processes inside dense structures. The future for this field is bright, as we are entering an era of Gpc^3 surveys beyond the local Universe. In Chapter 8 I close this thesis by providing a future outlook. Specific research directions with great potential to blossom are highlighted. With the theoretical and observational advancements laid out in this dissertation, we now have a much more solid foundation of this fascinating subject.Item Integral field spectroscopy as a probe of galaxy evolution(2011-08) Adams, Joshua Jesse; Gebhardt, Karl; Hill, Gary J.; Drory, Niv; Evans, Neal; Bromm, VolkerOptical spectroscopy and modeling are applied to four independent problems related to the structure and evolution of galaxies. The problems cover a broad range of look-back time and galaxy mass. Integral field spectroscopy with low surface brightness sensitivity is the tool employed to advance our understanding of the distribution, interplay, and evolution of the stars, dark matter, and gas. First, I review development and commissioning work done on the VIRUS-P instrument. I then present a large sample of galaxies over redshifts 1.9= 10E12 solar masses). Third, I study the dark matter halo profile in a nearby late-type dwarf galaxy in the context of the "core-cusp" controversy. N-body simulations predict such galaxies to have cuspy dark matter halos, while HI rotation curves and more recent hydrodynamical simulations indicate that such halos may instead be strongly cored. I measure the spatially resolved stellar velocity field and fit with two-integral Jeans models. A cuspy halo is preferred from the stellar kinematics. The mass models from stellar and gaseous kinematics disagree. The gas models assume circular motion in an infinitely thin disk which is likely unrealistic. The stellar kinematics presented are the first measurements of a collision-less tracer in such galaxies. Fourth, I attempt to measure diffuse H-alpha emission, fluoresced by the metagalactic UV background, in the outskirts of a nearby gas rich galaxy. I do not make a detection, but the deep flux limit over a large field-of-view places the most sensitive limit to-date on the UV background's photoionization rate of Gamma(z=0)<1.7x10E-14 1/s at 5 sigma certainty.Item Probing galaxy evolution by unveiling the structure of massive galaxies across cosmic time and in diverse environments(2013-08) Weinzirl, Timothy Michael; Jogee, ShardhaHow galaxies form and evolve is one of the primary outstanding problems in extragalactic astronomy. I conduct a quantitative census of the relative importance of the major structural components (flattened and dynamically cold disk-dominated components versus puffy and dynamically hot spheroidal or triaxial bulges/ellipticals) in massive galaxies over cosmic time and across different environments in order to explore how galaxies evolve under the action of the various assembly mechanisms (major mergers, minor mergers, gas accretion, and internal secular processes) in these different regimes. I perform three inter-related analyses focusing on massive galaxies from z ~ 0 - 3 in both field and rich cluster environments. Important strengths of this thesis include the use of high-resolution, panchromatic imaging from some of the largest and deepest galaxy surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Spitzer, and Chandra space telescopes, and also the inclusion of detailed comparisons between the empirical data and hierarchical ΛCDM-based models of galaxy evolution.Item The role of gas in galaxy evolution : infall, star formation, and internal structure(2013-05) Barentine, John Caleb; Kormendy, JohnThe story of a typical spiral galaxy like the Milky Way is a tale of the transformation of metal-poor hydrogen gas to heavier elements through nuclear burning in stars. This gas is thought to arrive in early times during the assembly phase of a galaxy and at late times through a combination of hot and cold “flows” representing external evolutionary processes that continue to the present. Through a somewhat still unclear mechanism, the atomic hydrogen is converted to molecules that collect into clouds, cool, condense, and form stars. At the end of these stars’ lives, much of their constituent gas is returned to the galaxy to participate in subsequent generations of star formation. In earlier times in the history of the universe, frequent and large galaxy mergers brought additional gas to further fuel this process. However, major merger activity began an ongoing decline several Gyr ago and star formation is now diminishing; the universe is in transitioning to an era in which the structural evolution of disk galaxies is dominated by slow, internal (“secular”) processes. In this evolutionary regime, stars and the gas from which they are formed participate in resonant gravitational interactions within disks to build ephemeral structures such as bars, rings, and small scale-height central bulges. This regime is expected to last far into the future in a galaxy like the Milky Way, punctuated by the periodic accretion of dwarf satellite galaxies but lacking in the “major” mergers that kinematically scramble disks into ellipticals. This thesis examines details of the story of gas from infall to structure-building in three major parts. The High- and Intermediate-Velocity Clouds (HVCs/IVCs) are clouds of H i gas at velocities incompatible with simple models of differential Galactic rotation. Proposed ideas explaining their observed properties and origins include (1) the infall of low-metallicity material from the Halo, possibly as cold flows along filaments of a putative “Cosmic Web”; (2) gas removed from dwarf satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way via some combination of ram pressure stripping and tidal disruption; and (3) the supply and return feeds of a “Galactic Fountain” cycling gas between the Disk and Halo. Numerical values of their observed properties depend strongly on the Clouds’ distances. In Chapter 2, we summarize results of an ongoing effort to obtain meaningful distances to a selection of HVCs and IVCs using the absorption-line bracketing method. We find the Clouds are not at cosmological distances, and with the exception of the Magellanic Stream, they are generally situated within a few kiloparsecs of the Disk. The strongest discriminator of the above origin scenarios are the heavy element abundances of the Clouds, but to date few reliable Cloud metal- licities have been published. We used archival UV spectroscopy, supplemented by new observations with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and H I 21 cm emission spectroscopy from a variety of sources to compute elemental abundances relative to hydrogen for 39 HVC/IVC components along 15 lines of sight. Many of these are previously unpublished. We find support for all three origin scenarios enumerated above while more than doubling the number of robust measurements of HVCs/IVCs in existence. The results of this work are detailed in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 we present the results of a spectroscopic study of the high-mass protostellar object NGC 7538 IRS 9 made with the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph (TEXES), a sensitive, high spectral resolution, mid-infrared grating spectrometer and compare our observations to published data on the nearby object NGC 7538 IRS 1. Forty-six individual lines in vibrational modes of the molecules C₂H₂, CH₄, HCN, NH₃ and CO were detected, including two isotopologues (¹³CO, ¹²C¹⁸O) and one combination mode ([nu]₄+[nu]₅ C₂H₂). Fitting synthetic spectra to the data yielded the Doppler shift, excitation temperature, Doppler b parameter, column density and covering factor for each molecule observed; we also computed column density upper limits for lines and species not detected, such as HNCO and OCS. We find differences among spectra of the two objects likely attributable to their differing radiation and thermal environments. Temperatures and column densities for the two objects are generally consistent, while the larger line widths toward IRS 9 result in less saturated lines than those toward IRS 1. Finally, we compute an upper limit on the size of the continuum-emitting region (~2000 AU) and use this constraint and our spectroscopy results to construct a schematic model of IRS 9. In Chapters 5 and 6, we describe studies of the bright, nearby, edge-on spiral galaxies NGC 4565 and NGC 5746, both previously classified as type Sb spirals with measured bulge-to-total luminosity ratios B/T ≃ 0.4. These ratios indicate merger-built, “classical” bulges but in reality represent the photometric signatures of bars seen end-on. We performed 1-D photometric decompositions of archival Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and Sloan Digital Sky Survey images spanning a range of wavelengths from the optical to near-infrared that penetrate the thick midplane dust in each galaxy. In both, we find high surface brightness, central stellar components that are clearly distinct from the boxy bar and from the disk; we interpret these structures as small scale height “pseudobulges” built from disk material via internal, resonant gravitational interactions among disk material − not classical bulges. The brightness profiles of the innermost component of each galaxy is well fitted by a Sersic function with major/minor axis Sersic indices of n = 1.55±0.07 and 1.33±0.12 for NGC 4565 and n = 0.99±0.08 and 1.17 ± 0.24 for NGC 5746. The true “bulge-to-total” ratios of these galaxies are considerably smaller than once believed: 0.061+0.009 and 0.136 ± 0.019, −0.008, respectively. Therefore, more galaxies than we thought contain little or no evidence of a merger-built classical bulge. We argue further that a classical bulge cannot hide behind the dust lane of either galaxy and that other structures built exclusively through secular evolution processes such as inner rings, both revealed through the infrared imagery, argue strongly against any merger violence in the recent past history of these objects. From a formation point of view, NGC 4565 and NGC 5746 are giant, pure-disk galaxies, and we do not understand how such galaxies form in a ΛCDM universe. This presents a challenge to our picture of galaxy formation by hierarchical clustering because it is difficult to grow galaxies as large as these without making big, classical bulges. We summarize the work presented in this thesis in Chapter 7 and conclude with speculations about the future direction of research in this field.Item Studying star formation at low and high redshift with integral field spectroscopy(2011-05) Blanc, Guillermo; Gebhardt, Karl; Evans, Neal J.; Hill, Gary J.; Bromm, Volker; Gawiser, EricIn this thesis I focus mainly in studying the process of star formation in both high redshift, and local star forming galaxies, by using an observational technique called integral field spectroscopy (IFS). Although these investigations are aimed at studying the star formation properties of these objects, throughout this work I will also discuss the geometric, kinematic, and chemical structures in the inter-stellar medium of these galaxies, which are intimately connected with the process of star formation itself. The studies presented here were conducted under the umbrella of two different projects. First, the HETDEX Pilot Survey for Emission Line Galaxies, where I have studied the properties of Ly-alpha emitting galaxies across the 2Item Sweep the dust away: infrared kinematics of nearby galaxies(2005) Silge, Julia Dorothea; Gebhardt, KarlItem Turbulent mixing of chemical elements in galaxies(2008-05) Pan, Liubin; Scalo, John M.Chemical elements synthesized in stars are released into the interstellar medium (ISM) from discrete and localized events such as supernova (SN) explosions and stellar winds. The efficiency of transport and mixing of the new nucleosynthesis products in the ISM determines the degree of chemical inhomogeneity in the galaxy, which is observable in objects of the same age, such as coeval stars and the ISM today. It also has implications for the transition from metal-poor to normal star formation in high-redshift galaxies. We develop a physical mixing model for chemical homogenization in the turbulent ISM of galaxies using modern theories and methods for passive scalar turbulence. A turbulent velocity field stretches, compresses and folds tracers into structures of smaller and smaller scales that can be homogenized faster by micro-scopic diffusivity, the only physical process that truly mixes. From a model that incorporates this physical process, an evolution equation for the probability distribution of the tracer concentration is derived. Including the processes of new metal release, infall of low metallicity gas and incorporation of metals into new stars in the equation, we establish a new approach to investigate chemical inhomogeneity in galaxies: a kinetic equation for the metallicity probability distribution function, containing all the 1-point statistical information of the metallicity fluctuations. Motivated by a recent interpretation of ultraviolet properties of high-redshift Lyman Break Galaxies, we apply this approach to study mixing of primordial gas in these galaxies and find that primordial gas can survive for ~ 100 Myr in the presence of continuous metal sources and turbulent mixing if the unlikely efficient mixing in SN shells is excluded. Recent observations show that the Galaxy has been extremely homogeneous during most of its history. In an attempt to understand the homogeneity using our approach, we find that standard chemical evolution models without infall give metallicity scatters consistent with observations while all the infall models produce scatters at least 5 times larger than observed. To avoid this discrepancy and to remain a valid solution to the G-dwarf problem, the main motivation for infall models, the infall gas is required to primarily consist of small clouds of size less than ~ 5 pc. Fluctuations in the carbon to oxygen abundance ratio are of astrobiological interest: regions with C>O are likely to be devoid of water, which is thought to be essential for life. A small degree of inhomogeneity in the ratio gives a finite probability for the existence of regions with C>O even when the average ratio is smaller than unity. As the mean C/O ratio increases, as supported by observations and theoretical models, the Galaxy will eventually make a transition from mostly oxygen-rich to mostly carbon-rich. To the extent that life requires liquid water, the formation of habitable planets would no longer be possible. Adopting a negative Galactic C/O radial gradient, the transition appears as an outward-moving dehydration wave from the inner regions of the Galaxy. Finally we examine the effect of turbulent stretching on nuclear flames in Type Ia Supernova (SN Ia) progenitors. Turbulent stretching exhibits strong intermittency at small scales where its probability distribution shows a broad tail, corresponding to intense but rare stretching events. These events have important implications for the flame burning state and thus for the deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) in SN Ia explosions. Current DDT models require a critical turbulent intensity or stretching over a flame region that is sufficiently large. We find that including local intermittent stretching in these models results in a shift toward larger transition densities at which the DDT occurs.Item Two non-traditional applications of orbit-based modeling(2010-08) Jardel, John Raymond; Gebhardt, Karl; Kormendy, John; Milosavljevic, Milos; Shapiro, PaulOrbit-based modeling is a powerful way to construct dynamical models of galaxies. It has been used to measure the masses of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), constrain dark matter halos, and to recover information about the orbit structure of galaxies. This type of modeling usually goes hand in hand with the study of elliptical galaxies, however its applicability extends much further than this. In this thesis, I apply the well-studied technique of orbit-based modeling to two different types of galaxies—NGC 4594 (Sa) and Fornax (dSph). In NGC 4594, I use orbit-based models to update the mass of the central SMBH, place new constraints on its dark matter halo, and analyze the internal moments of its distribution function. For Fornax, the focus is to determine the shape of the dark matter density profile as well as to learn what we can from the internal moments.