Using 25 years of data from uninterrupted monitoring of stellar orbits in the Galactic Center, we present an update of the main results from this unique data set: a measurement of mass and distance ...to Sgr A*. Our progress is not only due to the eight-year increase in time base, but also to the improved definition of the coordinate system. The star S2 continues to yield the best constraints on the mass of and distance to Sgr A*; the statistical errors of 0.13 × 10 6 M and 0.12 kpc have halved compared to the previous study. The S2 orbit fit is robust and does not need any prior information. Using coordinate system priors, the star S1 also yields tight constraints on mass and distance. For a combined orbit fit, we use 17 stars, which yields our current best estimates for mass and distance: M = 4.28 0.10 stat . 0.21 sys × 10 6 M and R 0 = 8.32 0.07 stat . 0.14 sys kpc . These numbers are in agreement with the recent determination of R0 from the statistical cluster parallax. The positions of the mass, of the near-infrared flares from Sgr A*, and of the radio source Sgr A* agree to within 1 mas. In total, we have determined orbits for 40 stars so far, a sample which consists of 32 stars with randomly oriented orbits and a thermal eccentricity distribution, plus eight stars that we can explicitly show are members of the clockwise disk of young stars, and which have lower-eccentricity orbits.
We report new detections and limits from a NOEMA and ALMA CO(1-0) search for molecular outflows in 13 local galaxies with high far-infrared surface brightness, and combine these with local universe ...CO outflow results from the literature. The CO line ratios and spatial outflow structure of our targets provide some constraints on the conversion steps from observables to physical quantities such as molecular mass outflow rates. Where available, ratios between outflow emission in higher J CO transitions and in CO(1-0) are typically consistent with excitation
R
i
1
≲ 1. However, for IRAS 13120−5453,
R
31
= 2.10 ± 0.29 indicates optically thin CO in the outflow. Like much of the outflow literature, we use
α
CO(1 − 0)
= 0.8, and we present arguments for using
C
= 1 in deriving molecular mass outflow rates
Ṁ
out
=
C
M
out
v
out
/
R
out
. We compare the two main methods for molecular outflow detection: CO millimeter interferometry and
Herschel
OH-based spectroscopic outflow searches. For 26 sources studied with both methods, we find an 80% agreement in detecting
v
out
≳ 150 km s
−1
outflows, and non-matches can be plausibly ascribed to outflow geometry and signal-to-noise ratio. For a published sample of 12 bright ultraluminous infrared galaxies with detailed OH-based outflow modeling, CO outflows are detected in all but one. Outflow masses, velocities, and sizes for these 11 sources agree well between the two methods, and modest remaining differences may relate to the different but overlapping regions sampled by CO emission and OH absorption. Outflow properties correlate better with active galactic nucleus (AGN) luminosity and with bolometric luminosity than with far-infrared surface brightness. The most massive outflows are found for systems with current AGN activity, but significant outflows in nonAGN systems must relate to star formation or to AGN activity in the recent past. We report scaling relations for the increase of outflow mass, rate, momentum rate, and kinetic power with bolometric luminosity. Short flow times of ∼10
6
yr and some sources with resolved multiple outflow episodes support a role of intermittent driving, likely by AGNs.
Evidence of strong quasar feedback in the early Universe Maiolino, R.; Gallerani, S.; Neri, R. ...
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Letters,
September 2012, 2012-09-01, 20120901, Volume:
425, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
ABSTRACT
Most theoretical models invoke quasar‐driven outflows to quench star formation in massive galaxies, and this feedback mechanism is required to account for the population of old and passive ...galaxies observed in the local Universe. The discovery of massive, old and passive galaxies at z∼ 2 implies that such quasar feedback on to the host galaxy must have been at work very early on, close to the reionization epoch. We have observed the C ii 158 m transition in SDSS J114816.64+525150.3, which, at z= 6.4189, is one of the most distant quasars known. We detect broad wings of the line tracing a quasar‐driven massive outflow. This is the most distant massive outflow ever detected and is likely tracing the long‐sought quasar feedback, already at work in the early Universe. The outflow is marginally resolved on scales of ∼16 kpc, implying that the outflow can really affect the whole galaxy, as required by quasar feedback models. The inferred outflow rate, , is the highest ever found. At this rate, the outflow can clean the gas in the host galaxy, and therefore quench star formation, in a few million years.
The SHINING survey offers a great opportunity to study the properties of the ionized and neutral media of galaxies from prototypical starbursts and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to heavily obscured ...objects. Based on Herschel/PACS observations of the main far-infrared (FIR) fine-structure lines, in this paper, we analyze the physical mechanisms behind the observed line deficits in galaxies, the apparent offset of luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) from the mass-metallicity relation, and the scaling relations between C ii 158 m line emission and star formation rate (SFR). Based on a toy model and the Cloudy code, we conclude that the increase in the ionization parameter with FIR surface brightness can explain the observed decrease in the line-to-FIR continuum ratio of galaxies. In the case of the C ii line, the increase in the ionization parameter is accompanied by a reduction in the photoelectric heating efficiency and the inability of the line to track the increase in the FUV radiation field as galaxies become more compact and luminous. In the central approximately kiloparsec regions of AGN galaxies, we observe a significant increase in the O i 63 m/C ii line ratio; the AGN impact on the line-to-FIR ratios fades on global scales. Based on extinction-insensitive metallicity measurements of LIRGs, we confirm that they lie below the mass-metallicity relation, but the offset is smaller than those reported in studies that use optical-based metal abundances. Finally, we present scaling relations between C ii emission and SFR in the context of the main sequence of star-forming galaxies.
Abstract
We derive 2D dust attenuation maps at ∼1 kpc resolution from the UV continuum for 10 galaxies on the
z
∼ 2 star-forming main sequence (SFMS). Comparison with IR data shows that 9 out of 10 ...galaxies do not require further obscuration in addition to the UV-based correction, though our sample does not include the most heavily obscured, massive galaxies. The individual rest-frame
V
-band dust attenuation (
A
V
) radial profiles scatter around an average profile that gently decreases from ∼1.8 mag in the center down to ∼0.6 mag at ∼3–4 half-mass radii. We use these maps to correct UV- and H
α
-based star formation rates (SFRs), which agree with each other. At masses
, the dust-corrected specific SFR (sSFR) profiles are on average radially constant at a mass-doubling timescale of ∼300 Myr, pointing at a synchronous growth of bulge and disk components. At masses
, the sSFR profiles are typically centrally suppressed by a factor of ∼10 relative to the galaxy outskirts. With total central obscuration disfavored, this indicates that at least a fraction of massive
z
∼ 2 SFMS galaxies have started their inside-out star formation quenching that will move them to the quenched sequence. In combination with other observations, galaxies above and below the ridge of the SFMS relation have, respectively, centrally enhanced and centrally suppressed sSFRs relative to their outskirts, supporting a picture where bulges are built owing to gas “compaction” that leads to a high central SFR as galaxies move toward the upper envelope of the SFMS.
We report high-quality, H or CO rotation curves (RCs) to several Re for 41 large, massive, star-forming disk galaxies (SFGs) across the peak of cosmic galaxy evolution (z ∼ 0.67-2.45), taken with the ...ESO-VLT, the LBT and IRAM-NOEMA. Most RC41 SFGs have reflection-symmetric RCs plausibly described by equilibrium dynamics. We fit the major axis position-velocity cuts using beam-convolved forward modeling generated in three dimensions, with models that include a bulge and turbulent disk component embedded in a dark matter (DM) halo. We include priors for stellar and molecular gas masses, optical light effective radii and inclinations, and DM masses from abundance-matching scaling relations. Two-thirds or more of the z ≥ 1.2 SFGs are baryon dominated within a few Re of typically 5.5 kpc and have DM fractions less than maximal disks (median 〈 f DM ( R e ) 〉 = 0.12 ). At lower redshift (z < 1.2), that fraction is less than one-third. DM fractions correlate inversely with the baryonic angular momentum parameter, baryonic surface density, and bulge mass. Inferred low DM fractions cannot apply to the entire disk and halo but more plausibly reflect a flattened, or cored, inner DM density distribution. The typical central "DM deficit" in these cores relative to Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) distributions is ∼30% of the bulge mass. The observations are consistent with rapid radial transport of baryons in the first-generation massive gas-rich halos forming globally gravitationally unstable disks and leading to efficient build-up of massive bulges and central black holes. A combination of heating due to dynamical friction and AGN feedback may drive DM out of the initial cusps.
ABSTRACT
We report on the determination of electron densities, and their impact on the outflow masses and rates, measured in the central few hundred parsecs of 11 local luminous active galaxies. We ...show that the peak of the integrated line emission in the active galactic nuclei (AGN) is significantly offset from the systemic velocity as traced by the stellar absorption features, indicating that the profiles are dominated by outflow. In contrast, matched inactive galaxies are characterized by a systemic peak and weaker outflow wing. We present three independent estimates of the electron density in these AGN, discussing the merits of the different methods. The electron density derived from the S ii doublet is significantly lower than that found with a method developed in the last decade using auroral and transauroral lines, as well as a recently introduced method based on the ionization parameter. The reason is that, for gas photoionized by an AGN, much of the S ii emission arises in an extended partially ionized zone where the implicit assumption that the electron density traces the hydrogen density is invalid. We propose ways to deal with this situation and we derive the associated outflow rates for ionized gas, which are in the range 0.001–0.5 M⊙ yr−1 for our AGN sample. We compare these outflow rates to the relation between $\dot{M}_{\rm out}$ and LAGN in the literature, and argue that it may need to be modified and rescaled towards lower mass outflow rates.
We derive new constraints on the mass, rotation, orbit structure, and statistical parallax of the Galactic old nuclear star cluster and the mass of the supermassive black hole. We combine star counts ...and kinematic data from Fritz et al., including 2500 line-of-sight velocities and 10 000 proper motions obtained with VLT instruments. We show that the difference between the proper motion dispersions σ
l
and σ
b
cannot be explained by rotation, but is a consequence of the flattening of the nuclear cluster. We fit the surface density distribution of stars in the central 1000 arcsec by a superposition of a spheroidal cluster with scale ∼100 arcsec and a much larger nuclear disc component. We compute the self-consistent two-integral distribution function f(E, L
z
) for this density model, and add rotation self-consistently. We find that (i) the orbit structure of the f(E, L
z
) gives an excellent match to the observed velocity dispersion profiles as well as the proper motion and line-of-sight velocity histograms, including the double-peak in the v
l
-histograms. (ii) This requires an axial ratio near q
1 = 0.7 consistent with our determination from star counts, q
1 = 0.73 ± 0.04 for r < 70 arcsec. (iii) The nuclear star cluster is approximately described by an isotropic rotator model. (iv) Using the corresponding Jeans equations to fit the proper motion and line-of-sight velocity dispersions, we obtain best estimates for the nuclear star cluster mass, black hole mass, and distance M
*(r < 100 arcsec) = (8.94 ± 0.31|stat ± 0.9|syst) × 106 M⊙, M
• = (3.86 ± 0.14|stat ± 0.4|syst) × 106 M⊙, and R
0 = 8.27 ± 0.09|stat ± 0.1|syst kpc, where the estimated systematic errors account for additional uncertainties in the dynamical modelling. (v) The combination of the cluster dynamics with the S-star orbits around Sgr A* strongly reduces the degeneracy between black hole mass and Galactic Centre distance present in previous S-star studies. A joint statistical analysis with the results of Gillessen et al., gives M
• = (4.23 ± 0.14) × 106 M⊙ and R
0 = 8.33 ± 0.11 kpc.
We use the Herschel/PACS spectrometer to study the global and spatially resolved far-infrared (FIR) fine-structure line emission in a sample of 52 galaxies that constitute the SHINING survey. These ...galaxies include star-forming, active-galactic nuclei (AGNs), and luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs). We find an increasing number of galaxies (and kiloparsec-size regions within galaxies) with low line-to-FIR continuum ratios as a function of increasing FIR luminosity (LFIR), dust infrared color, LFIR to molecular gas mass ratio (LFIR/Mmol), and FIR surface brightness ( FIR). The correlations between the C ii/FIR or O i/FIR ratios with FIR are remarkably tight (∼0.3 dex scatter over almost four orders of magnitude in FIR). We observe that galaxies with and FIR 1011 L kpc−2 tend to have weak fine-structure line-to-FIR continuum ratios, and that LIRGs with infrared sizes 1 kpc have line-to-FIR ratios comparable to those observed in typical star-forming galaxies. We analyze the physical mechanisms driving these trends in Paper II. The combined analysis of the C ii, N ii 122 m, and O iii 88 m lines reveals that the fraction of the C ii line emission that arises from neutral gas increases from 60% to 90% in the most active star-forming regions and that the emission originating in the ionized gas is associated with low-ionization, diffuse gas rather than with dense gas in H ii regions. Finally, we report the global and spatially resolved line fluxes of the SHINING galaxies to enable the comparison and planning of future local and high-z studies.
Most present-day galaxies with stellar masses ≥1011 solar masses show no ongoing star formation and are dense spheroids. Ten billion years ago, similarly massive galaxies were typically forming stars ...at rates of hundreds solar masses per year. It is debated how star formation ceased, on which time scales, and how this "quenching" relates to the emergence of dense spheroids. We measured stellar mass and star-formation rate surface density distributions in star-forming galaxies at redshift 2.2 with ∼1-kiloparsec resolution. We find that, in the most massive galaxies, star formation is quenched from the inside out, on time scales less than 1 billion years in the inner regions, up to a few billion years in the outer disks. These galaxies sustain high star-formation activity at large radii, while hosting fully grown and already quenched bulges in their cores.
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