We present a catalog of bulge, disk, and total stellar mass estimates for ~660,000 galaxies in the Legacy area of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data (SDSS) Release 7. These masses are based on a ...homogeneous catalog of g- and r-band photometry described by Simard et al., which we extend here with bulge+disk and Sersic profile photometric decompositions in the SDSS u, i, and z bands. We discuss the methodology used to derive stellar masses from these data via fitting to broadband spectral energy distributions (SEDs), and show that the typical statistical uncertainty on total, bulge, and disk stellar mass is ~0.15 dex. Despite relatively small formal uncertainties, we argue that SED modeling assumptions, including the choice of synthesis model, extinction law, initial mass function, and details of stellar evolution likely contribute an additional 60% systematic uncertainty in any mass estimate based on broadband SED fitting. We discuss several approaches for identifying genuine bulge+disk systems based on both their statistical likelihood and an analysis of their one-dimensional surface-brightness profiles, and include these metrics in the catalogs. Estimates of the total, bulge and disk stellar masses for both normal and dust-free models and their uncertainties are made publicly available here.
ABSTRACT Large galaxy surveys have demonstrated that galaxy–galaxy mergers can dramatically change the morphologies, star formation rates (SFRs), and metallicities of their constituents. However, ...most statistical studies have been limited to the measurement of global quantities, through large fibres or integrated colours. In this work, we present the first statistically significant study of spatially resolved star formation and metallicity profiles using integral field spectroscopy, using a sample of ∼20 000 spaxels in 36 visually selected post-merger galaxies from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory survey. By measuring offsets from SFR and metallicity scaling relations on a spaxel-by-spaxel basis, we are able to quantify where in the galaxy these properties are most affected by the interaction. We find that the SFR enhancements are generally centrally peaked, by a factor of 2.5 on average, in agreement with predictions from simulations. However, there is considerable variation in the SFR behaviour in the galactic outskirts, where both enhancement and suppression are seen. The median SFR remains enhanced by 0.1 dex out to at least 1.9 Re. The metallicity is also affected out to these large radii, typically showing a suppression of ∼−0.04 dex.
ABSTRACT
Machine learning is becoming a popular tool to quantify galaxy morphologies and identify mergers. However, this technique relies on using an appropriate set of training data to be ...successful. By combining hydrodynamical simulations, synthetic observations, and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), we quantitatively assess how realistic simulated galaxy images must be in order to reliably classify mergers. Specifically, we compare the performance of CNNs trained with two types of galaxy images, stellar maps and dust-inclusive radiatively transferred images, each with three levels of observational realism: (1) no observational effects (idealized images), (2) realistic sky and point spread function (semirealistic images), and (3) insertion into a real sky image (fully realistic images). We find that networks trained on either idealized or semireal images have poor performance when applied to survey-realistic images. In contrast, networks trained on fully realistic images achieve 87.1 per cent classification performance. Importantly, the level of realism in the training images is much more important than whether the images included radiative transfer, or simply used the stellar maps ($87.1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ compared to $79.6{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ accuracy, respectively). Therefore, one can avoid the large computational and storage cost of running radiative transfer with a relatively modest compromise in classification performance. Making photometry-based networks insensitive to colour incurs a very mild penalty to performance with survey-realistic data ($86.0{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ with r-only compared to $87.1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ with gri). This result demonstrates that while colour can be exploited by colour-sensitive networks, it is not necessary to achieve high accuracy and so can be avoided if desired. We provide the public release of our statistical observational realism suite, RealSim, as a companion to this paper.
Abstract
We present an overview of SITELLE, an Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (iFTS) available at the 3.6-m Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope. SITELLE is a Michelson-type interferometer able to ...reconstruct the spectrum of every light source within its 11 arcmin field of view in filter-selected bands of the visible (350–900 nm). The spectral resolution can be adjusted up to R = 10 000 and the spatial resolution is seeing-limited and sampled at 0.32 arcsec pixel−1. We describe the design of the instrument as well as the data reduction and analysis process. To illustrate SITELLE’s capabilities, we present some of the data obtained during and since the 2015 August commissioning run. In particular, we demonstrate its ability to separate the components of the O ii λλ 3726,29 doublet in Orion and to reach R = 9500 around Hα; to detect diffuse emission at a level of 4 × 10−17 erg cm−2 s−1 arcsec−2; to obtain integrated spectra of stellar absorption lines in galaxies despite the well-known multiplex disadvantage of the iFTS and to detect emission-line galaxies at different redshifts.
We use a sample of 43,690 galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 to study the systematic effects of specific star formation rate (SSFR) and galaxy size (as measured by the ...half-light radius, r sub(h)) on the mass-metallicity relation. We find that galaxies with high SSFR or large r sub(h) for their stellar mass have systematically lower gas-phase metallicities (by up to 0.2 dex) than galaxies with low SSFR or small r sub(h) We discuss possible origins for these dependencies, including galactic winds/outflows, abundance gradients, environment, and star formation rate efficiencies.
ABSTRACT
We determine an absolute calibration of stellar mass‐to‐light ratios for the densest ≃3 per cent of early‐type galaxies in the local Universe (redshift z≃ 0.08) from Sloan Digital Sky Survey ...(SDSS) Data Release 7. This sample of ∼4000 galaxies has, assuming a Chabrier initial mass function (IMF), effective stellar surface densities Σe > 2500 M⊙ pc−2, stellar population synthesis (SPS) stellar masses log10(MSPS/M⊙) < 10.8 and aperture velocity dispersions of (68 per cent range). In contrast to typical early‐type galaxies, we show that these dense early‐type galaxies follow the virial Fundamental Plane, which suggests that mass follows light. With the additional assumption that any dark matter does not follow the light, the dynamical masses of dense galaxies provide a direct measurement of stellar masses. Our dynamical masses (Mdyn), obtained from the spherical Jeans equations, are only weakly sensitive to the choice of anisotropy (β) due to the relatively large aperture of the SDSS fibre for these galaxies: Rap≃ 1.5Re. Assuming isotropic orbits (β= 0), we find a median log10(Mdyn/MSPS) = 0.233 ± 0.003, consistent with a Salpeter IMF, while more bottom‐heavy IMFs and standard Milky Way IMFs are strongly disfavoured. Our results are consistent with, but do not require, a dependence of the IMF on dynamical mass or velocity dispersion. We find evidence for a colour dependence to the IMF such that redder galaxies have heavier IMFs with Mdyn/MSPS∝ (g−r)1.13 ± 0.09. This may reflect a more fundamental dependence of the IMF on the age or metallicity of a stellar population, or the density at which the stars formed.
We present quantitative morphologies of ~300 galaxies in the optically defined green valley at 0.4 < z < 1.2, in order to constrain the mechanism(s) responsible for quenching star formation in the ...bulk of this population. The sample is selected from galaxies in the All-Wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey (AEGIS). While the green valley is defined using optical U -- B colors, we find that using a green valley sample defined using NUV -- R colors does not change the results. Using Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys imaging, we study several quantitative morphological parameters including CAS, B/T from GIM2D, and Gini/M 20. We find that the green galaxy population is intermediate between the red and blue galaxy populations in terms of concentration, asymmetry, and morphological type and merger fraction estimated using Gini/M 20. We find that most green galaxies are not classified as mergers; in fact, the merger fraction in the green valley is lower than in the blue cloud. We show that at a given stellar mass, green galaxies have higher concentration values than blue galaxies and lower concentration values than red galaxies. Additionally, we find that 12% of green galaxies have B/T = 0 and 21% have B/T <= 0.05. Our results show that green galaxies are generally massive (M * ~ 1010.5 M ) disk galaxies with high concentrations. We conclude that major mergers are likely not the sole mechanism responsible for quenching star formation in this population and that either other external processes or internal secular processes play an important role both in driving gas toward the center of these galaxies and in quenching star formation.
We investigate the origin of the relations between stellar mass and optical circular velocity for early-type galaxies (ETGs) and late-type galaxies (LTGs) - the Faber-Jackson (FJ) and Tully-Fisher ...(TF) relations. We combine measurements of dark halo masses (from satellite kinematics and weak lensing), and the distribution of baryons in galaxies (from a new compilation of galaxy scaling relations), with constraints on dark halo structure from cosmological simulations. The principal unknowns are the halo response to galaxy formation and the stellar initial mass function (IMF). The slopes of the TF and FJ relations are naturally reproduced for a wide range of halo response and IMFs. However, models with a universal IMF and universal halo response cannot simultaneously reproduce the zero-points of both the TF and FJ relations. For a model with a universal Chabrier IMF, LTGs require halo expansion, while ETGs require halo contraction. A Salpeter IMF is permitted for high-mass (σ≳ 180 km s−1) ETGs, but is inconsistent for intermediate masses, unless V
circ(R
e)/σe≳ 1.6. If the IMF is universal and close to Chabrier, we speculate that the presence of a major merger may be responsible for the contraction in ETGs while clumpy accreting streams and/or feedback leads to expansion in LTGs. Alternatively, a recently proposed variation in the IMF disfavours halo contraction in both types of galaxies. Finally we show that our models naturally reproduce flat and featureless circular velocity profiles within the optical regions of galaxies without fine-tuning.
We use a sample of close galaxy pairs selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (SDSS DR4) to investigate in what environments galaxy mergers occur and how the results of these ...mergers depend on differences in local galaxy density. The galaxies are quantified morphologically using two-dimensional bulge-plus-disc decompositions and compared to a control sample matched in stellar mass, redshift and local projected density. Lower density environments have fractionally more galaxy pairs with small projected separations (rp) and relative velocities (Δv), but even high-density environments contain significant populations of pairs with parameters that should be conducive to interactions. The connection between environment and Δv also implies that the velocity selection of a pairs sample affects (biases) the environment from which the pairs are selected. Metrics of asymmetry and colour are used to identify merger activity and triggered star formation. The location of star formation is inferred by distinguishing bulge and disc colours and calculating bulge fractions from the SDSS images. Galaxies in the lowest density environments show the largest changes in star formation rate, asymmetry and bulge-to-total fractions at small separations, accompanied by bluer bulge colours. At the highest local densities, the only galaxy property to show an enhancement in the closest pairs is asymmetry. We interpret these results as evidence that whilst interactions (leading to tidal distortions) occur at all densities, triggered star formation is seen only in low-to-intermediate density environments. We suggest that this is likely due to the typically higher gas fractions of galaxies in low-density environments. Finally, by cross-correlating our sample of galaxy pairs with a cluster catalogue, we investigate the dependence of interactions on clustercentric distance. It is found that for close pairs the fraction of asymmetric galaxies is highest in the cluster centres.
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