We studied the global and local M-Z relation based on the first data available from the CALIFA survey (150 galaxies). This survey provides integral field spectroscopy of the complete optical extent ...of each galaxy, with a resolution high enough to separate individual HIT regions and/or aggregations. About 3000 individual HIT regions have been detected. The spectra cover the wavelength range between 0113727 and SIT 6731, with a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to derive the oxygen abundance and star-formation rate associated with each region. In addition, we computed the integrated and spatially resolved stellar masses based on SDSS photometric data. We explore the relations between the stellar mass, oxygen abundance and star-formation rate using this dataset. Our results agree with the scenario in which gas recycling in galaxies, both locally and globally, is much faster than other typical timescales, such like that of gas accretion by inflow and/or metal loss due to outflows. In essence, late-type/disk-dominated galaxies seem to be in a quasi-steady situation, with a behavior similar to the one expected from an instantaneous recycling/closed-box model.
We present the intensive spectroscopic follow up of the Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) 2014J in the starburst galaxy M82. Twenty-seven optical spectra have been acquired from 2014 January 22 to September ...1 with the Isaac Newton and William Herschel Telescopes. After correcting the observations for the recession velocity of M82 and for Milky Way and host galaxy extinction, we measured expansion velocities from spectral line blueshifts and pseudo-equivalent width of the strongest features in the spectra, which gives an idea on how elements are distributed within the ejecta. We position SN 2014J in the Benetti, Branch et al. and Wang et al. diagrams. These diagrams are based on properties of the Si ii features and provide dynamical and chemical information about the SN ejecta. The nearby SN 2011fe, which showed little evidence for reddening in its host galaxy, is shown as a reference for comparisons. SN 2014J is a border-line object between the Core-normal and Broad-line groups, which corresponds to an intermediate position between low-velocity gradient and high-velocity gradient objects. SN 2014J follows the $R({\rm Si\,{\small {II}}})$–Δm15 correlation, which confirms its classification as a relatively normal SN Ia. Our description of the SN Ia in terms of the evolution of the pseudo-equivalent width of various ions as well as the position in the various diagrams put this specific SN Ia into the overall sample of SN Ia.
We present an improved version of FIT3D, a fitting tool for the analysis of the spectroscopic properties of the stellar populations and the ionized gas derived from moderate resolution spectra of ...galaxies. This tool was developed to analyze integral field spectroscopy data and it is the basis of P 3D, a pipeline used in the analysis of CALIFA, MaNGA, and SAMI data. We describe the philosophy and each step of the fitting procedure. We present an extensive set of simulations in order to estimate the precision and accuracy of the derived parameters for the stellar populations and the ionized gas. We report on the results of those simulations. Finally, we compare the results of the analysis using FIT3D with those provided by other widely used packages, and we find that the parameters derived by FIT3D are fully compatible with those derived using these other tools.
While studies of gas-phase metallicity gradients in disc galaxies are common, very little has been done towards the acquisition of stellar abundance gradients in the same regions. We present here a ...comparative study of the stellar metallicity and age distributions in a sample of 62 nearly face-on, spiral galaxies with and without bars, using data from the CALIFA survey. We measure the slopes of the gradients and study their relation with other properties of the galaxies. We find that the mean stellar age and metallicity gradients in the disc are shallow and negative. Furthermore, when normalized to the effective radius of the disc, the slope of the stellar population gradients does not correlate with the mass or with the morphological type of the galaxies. In contrast to this, the values of both age and metallicity at ~2.5 scale lengths correlate with the central velocity dispersion in a similar manner to the central values of the bulges, although bulges show, on average, older ages and higher metallicities than the discs. One of the goals of the present paper is to test the theoretical prediction that non-linear coupling between the bar and the spiral arms is an efficient mechanism for producing radial migrations across significant distances within discs. The process of radial migration should flatten the stellar metallicity gradient with time and, therefore, we would expect flatter stellar metallicity gradients in barred galaxies. However, we do not find any difference in the metallicity or age gradients between galaxies with and without bars. We discuss possible scenarios that can lead to this lack of difference.
We study, for the first time in a statistically significant and well-defined sample, the relation between the outer-disk ionized-gas metallicity gradients and the presence of breaks in the surface ...brightness profiles of disk galaxies. Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) g′- and r′-band surface brightness, (g′ – r′) color, and ionized-gasoxygen abundance profiles for 324 galaxies within the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey are used for this purpose. We perform a detailed light-profile classification, finding that 84% of our disks show down- or up-bending profiles (Type II and Type III, respectively), while the remaining 16% are well fitted by one single exponential (Type I). The analysis of the color gradients at both sides of this break shows a U-shaped profile for most Type II galaxies with an average minimum (g′ − r′) color of ~0.5 mag and an ionized-gas metallicity flattening associated with it only in the case of low-mass galaxies. Comparatively, more massive systems show a rather uniform negative metallicity gradient. The correlation between metallicity flattening and stellar mass for these systems results in p-values as low as 0.01. Independent of the mechanism having shaped the outer light profiles of these galaxies, stellar migration or a previous episode of star formation in a shrinking star-forming disk, it is clear that the imprint in their ionized-gas metallicity was different for low- and high-mass Type II galaxies. In the case of Type III disks, a positive correlation between the change in color and abundance gradient is found (the null hypothesis is ruled out with a p-value of 0.02), with the outer disks of Type III galaxies with masses ≤1010 M⊙ showing a weak color reddening or even a bluing. This is interpreted as primarily due to a mass downsizing effect on the population of Type III galaxies that recently experienced an enhanced inside-out growth.
Integral field spectroscopy (IFS) studies based on CALIFA survey data have recently revealed ongoing low-level star formation (SF) in the periphery of a small fraction (~10%) of local early-type ...galaxies (ETGs), witnessing a still ongoing inside-out galaxy growth process. A distinctive property of the nebular component in these ETGs, classified i+, is a structure with two radial zones, the inner of which displays LINER emission with a Hα equivalent width EW(Hα) ≃ 1 Å, the outer (3 Å <EW(Hα) ≲ 20 Å) Hii-region characteristics. Using CALIFA IFS data, we empirically demonstrate that the confinement of nebular emission to the galaxy periphery leads to a strong aperture (or, correspondingly, redshift) bias in spectroscopic single-fiber studies of type i+ ETGs: at low redshift (z ≲ 0.45), SDSS spectroscopy is restricted to the inner (SF-devoid LINER) zone, which causes the galaxies to be erroneously classified as “retired”, that is, systems entirely lacking SF, and whose faint nebular emissionis solely powered by the post-AGB stellar component. The SDSS aperture progressively encompasses the outer SF zone only at higher z, at which the galaxies are unambiguously classified as “composite SF/LINER”. We also empirically demonstrate that the principal effect of a decreasing spectroscopic aperture on the classification of i+ ETGs through standard Nii/Hα vs. Oiii/Hβ emission-line (BPT) ratios consists of a monotonic shift upward and to the right precisely along the upper right wing of the “seagull” distribution on the BPT plane, that is, along the pathway connecting composite SF/Hii galaxies with AGN/LINERs. Motivated by these observational insights, we also investigate theoretically observational biases in aperture-limited studies of inside-out growing galaxies as a function of z. To this end, we devise a simple 1D model that involves an outward-propagating exponentially decreasing SF process since z ~ 10 and reproduces the radial extent and two-zone EW(Hα) distribution of local i+ ETGs. By simulating the 3′′ spectroscopic SDSS aperture in this model, we find that SDSS studies at z ≲ 1 are progressively restricted to the inner (SF-devoid LINER) zone and miss an increasingly larger portion of the Hα-emitting periphery. This leads to the incorrect spectroscopic classification of these inside-out assembling galaxies as retired ETG/LINERs and also to a severe underestimation of their total star formation rate (SFR) in a manner inversely related to z. More specifically, the SFR inferred from the Hα luminosity registered within the SDSS fiber is reduced by 50% at z ~ 0.86, reaching only 0.1% of its integral value at z = 0.1. We argue that the aperture-driven biases described above pertain to any morphological analog of i+ ETGs (e.g., SF-quiescent bulges within star-forming disks), regardless of whether it is viewed from the perspective of inside-out growth or inside-out SF quenching, and might be of considerable relevance to galaxy taxonomy and studies of the cosmic SFR density as a function of z.
H II regions in galaxies are the sites of star formation, so they are special places for understanding the build-up of stellar mass in the universe. The line ratios of this ionized gas are frequently ...used to characterize the ionization conditions. We explore the connections between the ionization conditions and the properties of the overall underlying stellar population in H II regions, in order to uncover the actual physical connection between them. We use the H II regions catalog from the CALIFA survey, which is the largest in existence with more than 5000 H II regions, to explore their distribution across the classical OIII lambda5007/Hbeta vs. NII lambda6583/Halpha diagnostic diagram, and the way it depends on the oxygen abundance, ionization parameter, electron density, and dust attenuation. The results indicate that although H II regions are short-lived events, they are affected by the total underlying stellar population.
We use spatially and temporally resolved maps of stellar population properties of 300 galaxies from the CALIFA integral field survey to investigate how the stellar metallicity (Z sub(*)) relates to ...the total stellar mass (M sub(*)) and the local mass surface density ( mu sub(*)) in both spheroidal- and disk-dominated galaxies. The galaxies are shown to follow a clear stellar mass-metallicity relation (MZR) over the whole 10 super(9)-10 super(12) M sub(middot in circle) range. This relation is steeper than the one derived from nebular abundances, which is similar to the flatter stellar MZR derived when we consider only young stars. We also find a strong relation between the local values of mu sub(*) and Z sub(*) (the mu ZR), betraying the influence of local factors in determining Z sub(*). This shows that both local ( mu sub(*)-driven) and global (M sub(*)-driven) processes are important in determining metallicity in galaxies. We find that the overall balance between local and global effects varies with the location within a galaxy. In disks, mu sub(*) regulates Z sub(*), producing a strong mu ZR whose amplitude is modulated by M sub(*). In spheroids it is M sub(*) that dominates the physics of star formation and chemical enrichment, with mu sub(*) playing a minor, secondary role. These findings agree with our previous analysis of the star formation histories of CALIFA galaxies, which showed that mean stellar ages are mainly governed by surface density in galaxy disks and by total mass in spheroids.
ABSTRACT This paper aims to provide aperture corrections for emission lines in a sample of spiral galaxies from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey (CALIFA) database. In particular, we ...explore the behavior of the log(O iii λ5007/Hβ)/(N ii λ6583/H ) (O3N2) and logN ii λ6583/H (N2) flux ratios since they are closely connected to different empirical calibrations of the oxygen abundances in star-forming galaxies. We compute the median growth curves of H , H /Hβ, O3N2, and N2 up to 2.5R50 and 1.5 disk . These distances cover most of the optical spatial extent of the CALIFA galaxies. The growth curves simulate the effect of observing galaxies through apertures of varying radii. We split these growth curves by morphological types and stellar masses to check if there is any dependence on these properties. The median growth curve of the H flux shows a monotonous increase with radius with no strong dependence on galaxy inclination, morphological type, and stellar mass. The median growth curve of the H /Hβ ratio monotonically decreases from the center toward larger radii, showing for small apertures a maximum value of 10% larger than the integrated one. It does not show any dependence on inclination, morphological type, and stellar mass. The median growth curve of N2 shows a similar behavior, decreasing from the center toward larger radii. No strong dependence is seen on the inclination, morphological type, and stellar mass. Finally, the median growth curve of O3N2 increases monotonically with radius, and it does not show dependence on the inclination. However, at small radii it shows systematically higher values for galaxies of earlier morphological types and for high stellar mass galaxies. Applying our aperture corrections to a sample of galaxies from the SDSS survey at 0.02 ≤ z ≤ 0.3 shows that the average difference between fiber-based and aperture-corrected oxygen abundances, for different galaxy stellar mass and redshift ranges, reaches typically to 11%, depending on the abundance calibration used. This average difference is found to be systematically biased, though still within the typical uncertainties of oxygen abundances derived from empirical calibrations. Caution must be exercised when using observations of galaxies for small radii (e.g., below 0.5 ) given the high dispersion shown around the median growth curves. Thus, the application of these median aperture corrections to derive abundances for individual galaxies is not recommended when their fluxes come from radii much smaller than either R50 or .
Based on a combined analysis of SDSS imaging and CALIFA integral field spectroscopy data, we report on the detection of faint (24 <μr mag/□″< 26) star-forming spiral-arm-like features in the ...periphery of three nearby early-type galaxies (ETGs). These features are of considerable interest because they document the still ongoing inside-out growth of some local ETGs and may add valuable observational insight into the origin and evolution of spiral structure in triaxial stellar systems. A characteristic property of the nebular component in the studied ETGs, classified i+, is a two-radial-zone structure, with the inner zone that displays faint (EW(Hα) ≃ 1 Å) low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) properties, and the outer one (3 Å <EW(Hα)≲ 20 Å) Hii-region characteristics. This spatial segregation of nebular emission in two physically distinct concentric zones calls for an examination of aperture effects in studies of type i+ ETGs with single-fiber spectroscopic data.
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