I describe a new, open-source astronomical image-fitting program called IMFIT, specialized for galaxies but potentially useful for other sources, which is fast, flexible, and highly extensible. A key ...characteristic of the program is an object-oriented design that allows new types of image components (two-dimensional surface-brightness functions) to be easily written and added to the program. Image functions provided with IMFIT include the usual suspects for galaxy decompositions (Sersic, exponential, Gaussian), along with Core-Sersic and broken-exponential profiles, elliptical rings, and three components that perform line-of-sight integration through three-dimensional luminosity-density models of disks and rings seen at arbitrary inclinations. Available minimization algorithms include Levenberg-Marquardt, Nelder-Mead simplex, and Differential Evolution, allowing trade-offs between speed and decreased sensitivity to local minima in the fit landscape. Minimization can be done using the standard chi super(2) statistic (using either data or model values to estimate per-pixel Gaussian errors, or else user-supplied error images) or Poisson-based maximum-likelihood statistics; the latter approach is particularly appropriate for cases of Poisson data in the low-count regime. I show that fitting low-signal-to-noise ratio galaxy images using chi super(2) minimization and individual-pixel Gaussian uncertainties can lead to significant biases in fitted parameter values, which are avoided if a Poisson-based statistic is used; this is true even when Gaussian read noise is present.
Abstract
I use distance- and mass-limited subsamples of the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G) to investigate how the presence of bars in spiral galaxies depends on mass, colour, ...and gas content and whether large, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-based investigations of bar frequencies agree with local data. Bar frequency reaches a maximum of fbar ≈ 0.70 at M⋆ ∼ 109.7M⊙, declining to both lower and higher masses. It is roughly constant over a wide range of colours (g − r ≈ 0.1–0.8) and atomic gas fractions ($\log (M_{\mathrm{H} \small {I}}/ M_{\star }) \approx -2.5$ to 1). Bars are thus as common in blue, gas-rich galaxies are they are in red, gas-poor galaxies. This is in sharp contrast to many SDSS-based studies of z ∼ 0.01–0.1 galaxies, which report fbar increasing strongly to higher masses (from M⋆ ∼ 1010 to 1011M⊙), redder colours, and lower gas fractions. The contradiction can be explained if SDSS-based studies preferentially miss bars in, and underestimate the bar fraction for, lower mass (bluer, gas-rich) galaxies due to poor spatial resolution and the correlation between bar size and stellar mass. Simulations of SDSS-style observations using the S4G galaxies as a parent sample, and assuming that bars below a threshold angular size of twice the point spread function full width at half-maximum cannot be identified, successfully reproduce typical SDSS fbar trends for stellar mass and gas mass ratio. Similar considerations may affect high-redshift studies, especially if bars grow in length over cosmic time; simulations suggest that high-redshift bar fractions may thus be systematically underestimated.
Holm 15A, the brightest cluster galaxy of the galaxy cluster Abell 85, has an ultradiffuse central region, ∼ 2 mag fainter than the faintest depleted core of any early-type galaxy (ETG) that has been ...dynamically modeled in detail. We use orbit-based, axisymmetric Schwarzschild models to analyze the stellar kinematics of Holm 15A from new high-resolution, wide-field spectral observations obtained with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer at the Very Large Telescope. We find a supermassive black hole with a mass of ( 4.0 0.80 ) × 10 10 M at the center of Holm 15A. This is the most massive black hole with a direct dynamical detection in the local universe. We find that the distribution of stellar orbits is increasingly biased toward tangential motions inside the core. However, the tangential bias is less than that in other cored elliptical galaxies. We compare Holm 15A with N-body simulations of mergers between galaxies with black holes and find that the observed amount of tangential anisotropy and the shape of the light profile are consistent with a formation scenario where Holm 15A is the remnant of a merger between two ETGs with pre-existing depleted cores. We find that black hole masses in cored galaxies, including Holm 15A, scale inversely with the central stellar surface brightness and mass density. These correlations are independent of a specific parameterization of the light profile.
ABSTRACT
Vertically thickened bars, observed in the form of boxy/peanut (B/P) bulges, are found in the majority of massive barred disc galaxies in the local Universe, including our own. B/P bulges ...indicate that their host bars have suffered violent bending instabilities driven by anisotropic velocity distributions. We investigate for the first time how the frequency of B/P bulges in barred galaxies evolves from z = 1 to z ≈ 0, using a large sample of non-edge-on galaxies with masses M⋆ > 1010 M⊙, selected from the HST COSMOS survey. We find the observed fraction increases from $0^{+3.6}_{-0.0}{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ at z = 1 to $37.8^{+5.4}_{-5.1}$ per cent at z = 0.2. We account for problems identifying B/P bulges in galaxies with low inclinations and unfavourable bar orientations, and due to redshift-dependent observational biases with the help of a sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, matched in resolution, rest-frame band, signal-to-noise ratio and stellar mass and analysed in the same fashion. From this, we estimate that the true fraction of barred galaxies with B/P bulges increases from ∼10 per cent at z ≈ 1 to $\sim 70{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ at z = 0. In agreement with previous results for nearby galaxies, we find a strong dependence of the presence of a B/P bulge on galaxy stellar mass. This trend is observed in both local and high-redshift galaxies, indicating that it is an important indicator of vertical instabilities across a large fraction of the age of the Universe. We propose that galaxy formation processes regulate the thickness of galaxy discs, which in turn affect which galaxies experience violent bending instabilities of the bar.
Abstract
Evidence from different probes of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) of massive early-type galaxies (ETGs) has repeatedly converged on IMFs more bottom heavy than in the Milky Way (MW). ...This consensus has come under scrutiny due to often contradictory results from different methods on the level of individual galaxies. In particular, a number of strong lensing probes are ostensibly incompatible with a non-MW IMF. Radial gradients of the IMF—related to gradients of the stellar mass-to-light ratio ϒ—can potentially resolve this issue. We construct Schwarzschild models allowing for ϒ-gradients in seven massive ETGs with MUSE and SINFONI observations. We find dynamical evidence that ϒ increases toward the center for all ETGs. The gradients are confined to subkiloparsec scales. Our results suggest that constant-ϒ models may overestimate the stellar mass of galaxies by up to a factor of 1.5. For all except one galaxy, we find a radius where the total dynamical mass has a minimum. This minimum places the strongest constraints on the IMF outside the center and appears at roughly 1 kpc. We consider the IMF at this radius characteristic for the main body of each ETG. In terms of the IMF mass-normalization
α
relative to a Kroupa IMF, we find on average an MW-like IMF 〈
α
main
〉 = 1.03 ± 0.19. In the centers, we find concentrated regions with increased mass normalizations that are less extreme than previous studies suggested, but still point to a Salpeter-like IMF, 〈
α
cen
〉 = 1.54 ± 0.15.
ABSTRACT
I use volume- and mass-limited subsamples and recently published data from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G) to investigate how the size of bars depends on galaxy ...properties. The known correlation between bar semimajor axis a and galaxy stellar mass (or luminosity) is actually bimodal: for $\log \, (M_{\star }/\mathrm{M}_{\odot })\lesssim 10.1$, bar size is almost independent of stellar mass ($a \propto M_{\star }^{0.1}$), while it is a strong function for higher masses ($a \propto M_{\star }^{0.6}$). Bar size is a slightly stronger function of galaxy half-light radius Re and (especially) exponential disc scale length h (a ∝ h0.8). Correlations between stellar mass and galaxy size can explain the bar-size–M⋆ correlation – but only for galaxies with $\log \, (M_{\star }/\mathrm{M}_{\odot })\lesssim 10.1$; at higher masses, there is an extra dependence of bar size on M⋆ itself. Despite theoretical arguments that the presence of gas can affect bar growth, there is no evidence for any residual dependence of bar size on (present-day) gas mass fraction. The traditional dependence of bar size on Hubble type (longer bars in early-type discs) can be explained as a side effect of stellar mass–Hubble-type correlations. Finally, I show that galaxy size (Re or h) can be modelled as a function of stellar mass and both bar presence and bar size: barred galaxies tend to be more extended than unbarred galaxies of the same mass, with larger bars correlated with larger sizes.
ABSTRACT
Using a volume- and mass-limited (D < 30 Mpc, $\log \, (M_{\star }/M_{\odot })\ge 9.75$) sample of 155 barred S0–Sd galaxies, I determine the fraction with secondary structures within their ...bars. Some 20 ± 3 per cent have a separate inner bar, making them double-barred; an identical fraction have nuclear rings, with $11^{+3}_{-2}$ per cent hosting both. The inner-bar frequency is a strong, monotonic function of stellar mass: only $4^{+3}_{-2}$ per cent of barred galaxies with $\log \, (M_{\star }/M_{\odot })= 9.75$–10.25 are double-barred, while 47 ± 8 per cent of those with $\log \, (M_{\star }/M_{\odot })\gt 10.5$ are. The nuclear-ring frequency is a strong function of absolute bar size: only $1^{+2}_{-1}$ per cent of bars with semimajor axes <2 kpc have nuclear rings, while $39^{+6}_{-5}$ per cent of larger bars do. Both inner bars and nuclear rings are absent in very late-type (Scd–Sd) galaxies. Inner bar size correlates with galaxy stellar mass, but is clearly offset to smaller sizes from the main population of bars. This makes it possible to define ‘nuclear bars’ in a consistent fashion, based on stellar mass. There are eight single-barred galaxies where the bars are nuclear-bar-sized; some of these may be systems where an outer bar failed to form, or previously double-barred galaxies where the outer bar has dissolved. Inner bar size is even more tightly correlated with host bar size, which is likely the primary driver. In contrast, nuclear ring size is only weakly correlated with galaxy mass or bar size, with more scatter in size than is true of inner bars.
Abstract
Many barred galaxies exhibit upturns (shoulders) in their bar-major-axis density profile. Simulation studies have suggested that shoulders are supported by looped
x
1
orbits, occur in ...growing bars, and can appear after bar buckling. We investigate the orbital support and evolution of shoulders via frequency analyses of orbits in simulations. We confirm that looped orbits are shoulder-supporting, and can remain so, to a lesser extent, after being vertically thickened. We show that looped orbits appear at the resonance ( Ω
φ
− Ω
P
)/Ω
R
= 1/2 (analogous to the classical inner Lindblad resonance, and here called ILR) with vertical-to-radial frequency ratios 1 ≲ Ω
z
/Ω
R
≲ 3/2 (vertically
warm
orbits).
Cool
orbits at the ILR (those with Ω
z
/Ω
R
> 3/2) are vertically thin and have no loops, contributing negligibly to shoulders. As bars slow and thicken, either secularly or by buckling, they populate warm orbits at the ILR. Further thickening carries these orbits toward crossing the vertical ILR vILR, ( Ω
φ
− Ω
P
)/Ω
z
= 1/2, where they convert in-plane motion to vertical motion, become chaotic, kinematically hotter, and less shoulder-supporting. Hence, persistent shoulders require bars to trap new stars, consistent with the need for a growing bar. Since buckling speeds up trapping on warm orbits at the ILR, it can be followed by shoulder formation, as seen in simulations. This sequence supports the recent observational finding that shoulders likely precede the emergence of BP-bulges. The python module for the frequency analysis,
naif
, is made available.
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