We describe a new method of extracting the spectra of stars from observations of crowded stellar fields with integral field spectroscopy (IFS). Our approach extends the well-established concept of ...crowded field photometry in images into the domain of 3-dimensional spectroscopic datacubes. The main features of our algorithm follow. (1) We assume that a high-fidelity input source catalogue already exists, e.g. from HST data, and that it is not needed to perform sophisticated source detection in the IFS data. (2) Source positions and properties of the point spread function (PSF) vary smoothly between spectral layers of the datacube, and these variations can be described by simple fitting functions. (3) The shape of the PSF can be adequately described by an analytical function. Even without isolated PSF calibrator stars we can therefore estimate the PSF by a model fit to the full ensemble of stars visible within the field of view. (4) By using sparse matrices to describe the sources, the problem of extracting the spectra of many stars simultaneously becomes computationally tractable. We present extensive performance and validation tests of our algorithm using realistic simulated datacubes that closely reproduce actual IFS observations of the central regions of Galactic globular clusters. We investigate the quality of the extracted spectra under the effects of crowding with respect to the resulting signal-to-noise ratios (S/N) and any possible changes in the continuum level, as well as with respect to absorption line spectral parameters, radial velocities, and equivalent widths. The main effect of blending between two nearby stars is a decrease in the S/N in their spectra. The effect increases with the crowding in the field in a way that the maximum number of stars with useful spectra is always ~0.2 per spatial resolution element. This balance breaks down when exceeding a total source density of one significantly detected star per resolution element. We also explore the effects of PSF mismatch and other systematics. We close with an outlook by applying our method to a simulated globular cluster observation with the upcoming MUSE instrument at the ESO-VLT.
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We present an investigation of sample selection effects that influence the observed black hole-bulge relations and its evolution with redshift. We provide a common framework in which all kinds of ...selection effects on the M•-bulge relations can be investigated, but our main emphasis is on the consequences of using broad-line AGN with virial estimates of black hole masses and their host galaxies to search for evolution in the BH-bulge relation. We identified relevant sources of bias that were not discussed in the literature so far. A particularly important effect is caused by the fact that the active fraction among SMBHs varies considerably with BH mass, in the sense that high-mass BHs are less likely to be active than lower mass ones. In the connection with intrinsic scatter of the BH-bulge relation this effect implies a bias towards a low BH mass at given bulge property. This effect adds to the bias caused by working with luminosity or flux limited samples that were already discussed by others. A quantitative prediction of these biases requires (i) a realistic model of the sample selection function, and (ii) knowledge of relevant underlying distribution functions: the distribution of spheroid properties such as velocity dispersions or masses; the active fraction as a function of BH mass, or alternatively the active black hole mass function; and the Eddington ratio distribution function. We employed our formalism together with recently determined distribution functions to investigate how much existing studies of the M•-bulge relation using AGN hosts might suffer from selection biases. For low-redshift AGN samples we can naturally reproduce the flattening of the relation observed in some studies without having to invoke intrinsic differences in the BH-bulge relation between active and inactive galaxies. When extending our analysis to higher redshift samples we are clearly hampered by limited empirical constraints on the various relevant distribution functions. Using a best-guess approach for these distributions we estimate the expected magnitude of sample selection biases for a number of recent observational attempts to study the M•-bulge evolution. In no case do we find statistically significant evidence for an evolving M•-bulge relation. While the observed apparent offsets in M• /MBulge from the local relation can be quite large, the sample selection bias estimated from our formalism is typically of the same magnitude. We suggest a possible practical approach to circumvent several of the most problematic issues connected with AGN selection; this could become a powerful diagnostic in future investigations.
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We report the discovery of diffuse extended Ly
α
emission from redshift 3.1 to 4.5, tracing cosmic web filaments on scales of 2.5−4 cMpc. These structures have been observed in overdensities of Ly
α
...emitters in the MUSE Extremely Deep Field, a 140 h deep MUSE observation located in the
Hubble
Ultra-Deep Field. Among the 22 overdense regions identified, five are likely to harbor very extended Ly
α
emission at high significance with an average surface brightness of 5 × 10
−20
erg s
−1
cm
−2
arcsec
−2
. Remarkably, 70% of the total Ly
α
luminosity from these filaments comes from beyond the circumgalactic medium of any identified Ly
α
emitter. Fluorescent Ly
α
emission powered by the cosmic UV background can only account for less than 34% of this emission at
z
≈ 3 and for not more than 10% at higher redshift. We find that the bulk of this diffuse emission can be reproduced by the unresolved Ly
α
emission of a large population of ultra low-luminosity Ly
α
emitters (< 10
40
erg s
−1
), provided that the faint end of the Ly
α
luminosity function is steep (
α
⪅ −1.8), it extends down to luminosities lower than 10
38
− 10
37
erg s
−1
, and the clustering of these Ly
α
emitters is significant (filling factor < 1/6). If these Ly
α
emitters are powered by star formation, then this implies their luminosity function needs to extend down to star formation rates < 10
−4
M
⊙
yr
−1
. These observations provide the first detection of the cosmic web in Ly
α
emission in typical filamentary environments and the first observational clue indicating the existence of a large population of ultra low-luminosity Ly
α
emitters at high redshift.
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ABSTRACT The most frequently proposed model for the origin of quasars holds that the high accretion rates seen in luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) are primarily triggered during major mergers ...between gas-rich galaxies. While plausible for decades, this model has only begun to be tested with statistical rigor in the past few years. Here, we report on a Hubble Space Telescope study to test this hypothesis for z = 2 quasars with high supermassive black hole masses ( ), which dominate cosmic black hole growth at this redshift. We compare Wide Field Camera 3 (rest-frame V-band) imaging of 19 point source-subtracted quasar hosts to a matched sample of 84 inactive galaxies, testing whether the quasar hosts have greater evidence for strong gravitational interactions. Using an expert ranking procedure, we find that the quasar hosts are uniformly distributed within the merger sequence of inactive galaxies, with no preference for quasars in high-distortion hosts. Using a merger/non-merger cutoff approach, we recover distortion fractions of for quasar hosts and for inactive galaxies (distribution modes, 68% confidence intervals), with both measurements subjected to the same observational conditions and limitations. The slight enhancement in distorted fraction for quasar hosts over inactive galaxies is not significant, with a probability that the quasar fraction is higher ( ), in line with results for lower mass and lower z AGN. We find no evidence that major mergers are the primary triggering mechanism for the massive quasars that dominate accretion at the peak of cosmic quasar activity.
ABSTRACT
The physical properties of galactic winds are one of the keys to understand galaxy formation and evolution. These properties can be constrained thanks to background quasar lines of sight ...(LOS) passing near star-forming galaxies (SFGs). We present the first results of the MusE GAs FLOw and Wind survey obtained from two quasar fields, which have eight Mg
ii
absorbers of which three have rest equivalent width greater than 0.8 Å. With the new Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope (VLT), we detect six (75%) Mg
ii
host galaxy candidates within a radius of 30″ from the quasar LOS. Out of these six galaxy–quasar pairs, from geometrical argument, one is likely probing galactic outflows, where two are classified as “ambiguous,” two are likely probing extended gaseous disks and one pair seems to be a merger. We focus on the wind-pair and constrain the outflow using a high-resolution quasar spectra from the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph. Assuming the metal absorption to be due to ga;s flowing out of the detected galaxy through a cone along the minor axis, we find outflow velocities in the order of ≈150
(i.e., smaller than the escape velocity) with a loading factor,
, of ≈0.7. We see evidence for an open conical flow, with a low-density inner core. In the future, MUSE will provide us with about 80 multiple galaxy−quasar pairs in two dozen fields.
We present optical integral field spectroscopy for a flux-limited sample of 19 quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) at low redshift (z < 0.2) and spatially resolve their ionized gas properties at a physical ...resolution of 2–5 kpc. Extended ionized gas exists in all QSO host galaxies irrespective of their morphological types. The extended narrow-line regions (ENLRs), photoionized by the radiation of active galactic nuclei (AGN), have sizes of up to several kpc and correlate more strongly with the QSO continuum luminosity at 5100 Å than with the integrated O iii luminosity. We find a relation of the form log r ∝ (0.46 ± 0.04)log L
5100, reinforcing the picture of an approximately constant ionization parameter for the ionized clouds across the ENLR. Besides the ENLR, we also find gas ionized by young massive stars in more than 50 per cent of the galaxies on kpc scales. In more than half of the sample, the specific star formation rates based on the extinction-corrected Hα luminosity are consistent with those of inactive disc-dominated galaxies, even for some bulge-dominated QSO hosts. Enhanced star formation rates of up to ∼70 M⊙ yr−1 are rare and always associated with signatures of major mergers. Comparison with the star formation rate based on the 60+100 μm far-infrared (FIR) luminosity suggests that the FIR luminosity is systematically contaminated by AGN emission and Hα appears to be a more robust and sensitive tracer for the star formation rate. Evidence for efficient AGN feedback is scarce in our sample, but some of our QSO hosts lack signatures of ongoing star formation leading to a reduced specific star formation rate with respect to the main sequence of galaxies. Whether this is causally linked to the AGN or simply caused by gas depletion remains an open question. Based on 12 QSOs where we can make measurements, we find that on average bulge-dominated QSO host galaxies tend to fall below the mass–metallicity relation compared to their disc-dominated counterparts. While not yet statistically significant for our small sample, this may provide a useful diagnostic for future large surveys if this metal dilution can be shown to be linked to recent or ongoing galaxy interactions.
The growth of galaxies is one of the key problems in understanding the structure and evolution of the universe and its constituents. Galaxies can grow their stellar mass by accretion of halo or ...intergalactic gas clouds, or by merging with smaller or similar mass galaxies. The gas available translates into a rate of star formation, which controls the generation of metals in the universe. The spatially resolved history of their stellar mass assembly has not been obtained so far for any given galaxy beyond the Local Group. Here we demonstrate how massive galaxies grow their stellar mass inside-out. We report the results from the analysis of the first 105 galaxies of the largest three-dimensional spectroscopic survey to date of galaxies in the local universe (CALIFA). We apply the fossil record method of stellar population spectral synthesis to recover the spatially and time resolved star formation history of each galaxy. We show, for the first time, that the signal of downsizing is spatially preserved, with both inner and outer regions growing faster for more massive galaxies. Further, we show that the relative growth rate of the spheroidal component, nucleus, and inner galaxy, which happened 5-7 Gyr ago, shows a maximum at a critical stellar mass ~7 x 10 super(10) M sub(middot in circle). We also find that galaxies less massive than ~10 super(10) M sub(middot in circle) show a transition to outside-in growth, thus connecting with results from resolved studies of the growth of low-mass galaxies.
We present a census of the active black hole population at 1 < z < 2, by constructing the bivariate distribution function of black hole mass and Eddington ratio, employing a maximum likelihood ...fitting technique. The study of the active black hole mass function (BHMF) and the Eddington ratio distribution function (ERDF) allows us to clearly disentangle the active galactic nuclei (AGN) downsizing phenomenon, present in the AGN luminosity function, into its physical processes of black hole mass downsizing and accretion rate evolution. We are utilizing type-1 AGN samples from three optical surveys (VVDS, zCOSMOS and SDSS), that cover a wide range of 3 dex in luminosity over our redshift interval of interest. We investigate the cosmic evolution of the AGN population as a function of AGN luminosity, black hole mass and accretion rate. Compared to z = 0, we find a distinct change in the shape of the BHMF and the ERDF, consistent with downsizing in black hole mass. The active fraction or duty cycle of type-1 AGN at z ~ 1.5 is almost flat as a function of black hole mass, while it shows a strong decrease with increasing mass at z = 0. We are witnessing a phase of intense black hole growth, which is largely driven by the onset of AGN activity in massive SMBHs (supermassive black holes) towards z = 2. We finally compare our results to numerical simulations and semi-empirical models and while we find reasonable agreement over certain parameter ranges, we highlight the need to refine these models in order to match our observations.
Galaxies are surrounded by large reservoirs of gas, mostly hydrogen, that are fed by inflows from the intergalactic medium and by outflows from galactic winds. Absorption-line measurements along the ...lines of sight to bright and rare background quasars indicate that this circumgalactic medium extends far beyond the starlight seen in galaxies, but very little is known about its spatial distribution. The Lyman-α transition of atomic hydrogen at a wavelength of 121.6 nanometres is an important tracer of warm (about 10
kelvin) gas in and around galaxies, especially at cosmological redshifts greater than about 1.6 at which the spectral line becomes observable from the ground. Tracing cosmic hydrogen through its Lyman-α emission has been a long-standing goal of observational astrophysics
, but the extremely low surface brightness of the spatially extended emission is a formidable obstacle. A new window into circumgalactic environments was recently opened by the discovery of ubiquitous extended Lyman-α emission from hydrogen around high-redshift galaxies
. Such measurements were previously limited to especially favourable systems
or to the use of massive statistical averaging
because of the faintness of this emission. Here we report observations of low-surface-brightness Lyman-α emission surrounding faint galaxies at redshifts between 3 and 6. We find that the projected sky coverage approaches 100 per cent. The corresponding rate of incidence (the mean number of Lyman-α emitters penetrated by any arbitrary line of sight) is well above unity and similar to the incidence rate of high-column-density absorbers frequently detected in the spectra of distant quasars
. This similarity suggests that most circumgalactic atomic hydrogen at these redshifts has now been detected in emission.
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