We consider what can be learnt about the processes of gas accretion and depletion from the kinematic misalignment between the cold/warm gas and stars in local early-type galaxies. Using simple ...analytic arguments and a toy model of the processes involved, we show that the lack of objects with counter-rotating gas reservoirs strongly constrains the relaxation, depletion and accretion time-scales of gas in early-type galaxies. Standard values of the accretion rate, star-formation efficiency and relaxation rate are not simultaneously consistent with the observed distribution of kinematic misalignments. To reproduce that distribution, both fast gas depletion (t
dep ≲ 108 yr; e.g. more efficient star formation) and fast gas destruction (e.g. by active galactic nucleus feedback) can be invoked, but both also require a high rate of gas-rich mergers (>1 Gyr−1). Alternatively, the relaxation of misaligned material could happen over very long time-scales (≃100 dynamical times or ≈1–5 Gyr). We explore the various physical processes that could lead to fast gas depletion and/or slow gas relaxation, and discuss the prospects of using kinematic misalignments to probe gas-rich accretion processes in the era of large integral-field spectroscopic surveys.
We here present the first spatially resolved study of the initial mass function (IMF) in external galaxies derived using a dynamical tracer of the mass-to-light ratio (M/L). We use the kinematics of ...relaxed molecular gas discs in seven early-type galaxies (ETGs) selected from the ATLAS super( 3D) survey to dynamically determine M/L gradients. These M/L gradients are not very strong in the inner parts of these objects, and galaxies that do show variations are those with the highest specific star formation rates. Stellar population parameters derived from star formation histories are then used in order to estimate the stellar IMF mismatch parameter, and shed light on its variation within ETGs. Some of our target objects require a light IMF, otherwise their stellar population masses would be greater than their dynamical masses. In contrast, other systems seem to require heavier IMFs to explain their gas kinematics. Our analysis again confirms that IMF variation seems to be occurring within massive ETGs. We find good agreement between our IMF normalizations derived using molecular gas kinematics and those derived using other techniques. Despite this, we do not see find any correlation between the IMF normalization and galaxy dynamical properties or stellar population parameters, either locally or globally. In the future, larger studies which use molecules as tracers of galaxy dynamics can be used to help us disentangle the root cause of IMF variation.
We study the relationship between coronal X-ray emission and stellar age for late-type stars, and the variation of this relationship with spectral type. We select 717 stars from 13 open clusters and ...find that the ratio of X-ray to bolometric luminosity during the saturated phase of coronal emission decreases from 10−3.1 for late K dwarfs to 10−4.3 for early-F-type stars across the range 0.29 ≤ (B−V)0 < 1.41. Our determined saturation time-scales vary between 107.8 and 108.3 yr, though with no clear trend across the whole FGK range. We apply our X-ray emission-age relations to the investigation of the evaporation history of 121 known transiting exoplanets using a simple energy-limited model of evaporation and taking into consideration Roche lobe effects and different heating/evaporation efficiencies. We confirm that a linear cut-off of the planet distribution in the M
2/R
3 versus a
−2 plane is an expected result of population modification by evaporation and show that the known transiting exoplanets display such a cut-off. We find that for an evaporation efficiency of 25 per cent we expect around one in ten of the known transiting exoplanets to have lost ≥5 per cent of their mass since formation. In addition we provide estimates of the minimum formation mass for which a planet could be expected to survive for 4 Gyr for a range of stellar and planetary parameters. We emphasize the importance of the earliest periods of a planet's life for its evaporation history with 75 per cent expected to occur within the first Gyr. This raises the possibility of using evaporation histories to distinguish between different migration mechanisms. For planets with spin-orbit angles available from measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, no difference is found between the distributions of planets with misaligned orbits and those with aligned orbits. This suggests that dynamical effects accounting for misalignment occur early in the life of the planetary system, although additional data are required to test this.
In this work we discuss the technique of using molecular gas kinematics (or the kinematics of any dynamically cold tracer) to estimate black hole masses. We present a figure of merit that will be ...useful in defining future observational campaigns, and discuss its implications. We show that, in principle, one can estimate black hole masses using data that only resolve scales ≈2 times the formal black hole sphere of influence, and confirm this by re-analysing lower resolution observations of the molecular gas around the black hole in NGC 4526. We go on to discuss the effect that angular resolution, velocity resolution and the depth of the galaxies potential have on the ability to estimate black hole masses, and conclude by discussing prospects for the future. Once Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array is fully operational, we find that over 105 local galaxies with massive black holes will be observable, and that given sufficient surface brightness sensitivity one could measure the mass of a ≳4 × 108 M⊙ black hole at any redshift.
Abstract
We use eagle to quantify the effect galaxy mergers have on the stellar specific angular momentum of galaxies, jstars. We split mergers into dry (gas-poor)/wet (gas-rich), major/minor and ...different spin alignments and orbital parameters. Wet (dry) mergers have an average neutral gas-to-stellar mass ratio of 1.1 (0.02), while major (minor) mergers are those with stellar mass ratios ≥0.3 (0.1–0.3). We correlate the positions of galaxies in the jstars–stellar mass plane at z = 0 with their merger history, and find that galaxies of low spins suffered dry mergers, while galaxies of normal/high spins suffered predominantly wet mergers, if any. The radial jstars profiles of galaxies that went through dry mergers are deficient by ≈0.3 dex at r ≲ 10 r50 (with r50 being the half-stellar mass radius), compared to galaxies that went through wet mergers. Studying the merger remnants reveals that dry mergers reduce jstars by ≈30 per cent, while wet mergers increase it by ≈10 per cent, on average. The latter is connected to the build-up of the bulge by newly formed stars of high rotational speed. Moving from minor to major mergers accentuates these effects. When the spin vectors of the galaxies prior to the dry merger are misaligned, jstars decreases by a greater magnitude, while in wet mergers corotation and high orbital angular momentum efficiently spun-up galaxies. We predict what would be the observational signatures in the jstars profiles driven by dry mergers: (i) shallow radial profiles and (ii) profiles that rise beyond ≈10 r50, both of which are significantly different from spiral galaxies.
ABSTRACT
In this letter we construct a large sample of early-type galaxies (ETGs) with measured gas-phase metallicities from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Galaxy Zoo in order to investigate the ...origin of the gas that fuels their residual star formation. We use this sample to show that star-forming elliptical galaxies have a substantially different gas-phase metallicity distribution from spiral galaxies, with ≈7.4 per cent having a very low gas-phase metallicity for their mass. These systems typically have fewer metals in the gas phase than they do in their stellar photospheres, which strongly suggests that the material fuelling their recent star formation was accreted from an external source. We use a chemical evolution model to show that the enrichment time-scale for low-metallicity gas is very short, and thus that cosmological accretion and minor mergers are likely to supply the gas in ≳ 37 per cent of star-forming ETGs, in good agreement with estimates derived from other independent techniques.
Abstract
This is the first paper of a series exploring the multifrequency properties of a sample of 11 nearby low-excitation radio galaxies (LERGs) in the southern sky. We are conducting an extensive ...study of different galaxy components (stars, warm and cold gas, radio jets) with the aim of improving our understanding of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) fuelling/feedback cycle in LERGs. We present ALMA band 6 12CO(2–1) and continuum observations of nine sources. Continuum emission from the radio cores was detected in all objects. Six sources also show mm emission from jets on kpc/sub-kpc scales. The jet structures are very similar at mm and cm wavelengths. We conclude that synchrotron emission associated with the radio jets dominates the continuum spectra up to 230 GHz. The 12CO(2–1) line was detected in emission in six out of nine objects, with molecular gas masses ranging from 2 × 107 to 2 × 1010 M⊙. The CO detections show disc-like structures on scales from ≈0.2 to ≈10 kpc. In one case (NGC 3100) the CO disc presents some asymmetries and is disrupted in the direction of the northern radio jet, indicating a possible jet/disc interaction. In IC 4296, CO is detected in absorption against the radio core as well as in emission. In four of the six galaxies with CO detections, the gas rotation axes are roughly parallel to the radio jets in projection; the remaining two cases show large misalignments. In those objects where optical imaging is available, dust and CO appear to be co-spatial.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we study the molecular gas content of a representative sample of 67 of the most massive early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the local universe, drawn uniformly from the MASSIVE ...survey. We present new Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) 30-m telescope observations of 30 of these galaxies, allowing us to probe the molecular gas content of the entire sample to a fixed molecular-to-stellar mass fraction of 0.1 per cent. The total detection rate in this representative sample is 25$^{+5.9}_{-4.4}$ per cent, and by combining the MASSIVE and atlas3D molecular gas surveys, we find a joint detection rate of 22.4$^{+2.4}_{-2.1}$ per cent. This detection rate seems to be independent of galaxy mass, size, position on the Fundamental Plane, and local environment. We show here for the first time that true slow rotators can host molecular gas reservoirs, but the rate at which they do so is significantly lower than for fast rotators. Objects with a higher velocity dispersion at fixed mass (a higher kinematic bulge fraction) are less likely to have detectable molecular gas, and where gas does exist, have lower molecular gas fractions. In addition, satellite galaxies in dense environments have ≈0.6 dex lower molecular gas-to-stellar mass ratios than isolated objects. In order to interpret these results, we created a toy model, which we use to constrain the origin of the gas in these systems. We are able to derive an independent estimate of the gas-rich merger rate in the low-redshift universe. These gas-rich mergers appear to dominate the supply of gas to ETGs, but stellar mass loss, hot halo cooling, and transformation of spiral galaxies also play a secondary role.
ABSTRACT
We present high spatial resolution (≈12 pc) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array 12CO(J = 3–2) observations of the nearby lenticular galaxy NGC 4429. We identify 217 giant molecular ...clouds within the 450 pc radius molecular gas disc. The clouds generally have smaller sizes and masses but higher surface densities and observed linewidths than those of Milky Way disc clouds. An unusually steep size–linewidth relation ($\sigma \propto R_{\rm c}^{0.8}$) and large cloud internal velocity gradients (0.05–0.91 km s−1 pc−1) and observed virial parameters (〈αobs,vir〉 ≈ 4.0) are found, which appear due to internal rotation driven by the background galactic gravitational potential. Removing this rotation, an internal virial equilibrium appears to be established between the self-gravitational (Usg) and turbulent kinetic (Eturb) energies of each cloud, i.e. $\langle \alpha _{\rm sg,vir}\equiv \frac{2E_{\rm turb}}{\vert U_{\rm sg}\vert }\rangle \approx 1.3$. However, to properly account for both self and external gravity (shear and tidal forces), we formulate a modified virial theorem and define an effective virial parameter $\alpha _{\rm eff,vir}\equiv \alpha _{\rm sg,vir}+\frac{E_{\rm ext}}{\vert U_{\rm sg}\vert }$ (and associated effective velocity dispersion). The NGC 4429 clouds then appear to be in a critical state in which the self-gravitational energy and the contribution of external gravity to the cloud’s energy budget (Eext) are approximately equal, i.e. $\frac{E_{\rm ext}}{\vert U_{\rm sg}\vert }\approx 1$. As such, 〈αeff,vir〉 ≈ 2.2 and most clouds are not virialized but remain marginally gravitationally bound. We show this is consistent with the clouds having sizes similar to their tidal radii and being generally radially elongated. External gravity is thus as important as self-gravity to regulate the clouds of NGC 4429.
Angular momentum evolution of galaxies in EAGLE Lagos, Claudia del P; Theuns, Tom; Stevens, Adam R H ...
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
02/2017, Volume:
464, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We use the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamic simulation suite to study the specific angular momentum of galaxies, j, with the aims of (i) investigating the physical causes behind the wide range of j at ...fixed mass and (ii) examining whether simple, theoretical models can explain the seemingly complex and non-linear nature of the evolution of j. We find that j of the stars, jstars, and baryons, jbar, are strongly correlated with stellar and baryon mass, respectively, with the scatter being highly correlated with morphological proxies such as gas fraction, stellar concentration, (u-r) intrinsic colour, stellar age and the ratio of circular velocity to velocity dispersion. We compare with available observations at z = 0 and find excellent agreement. We find that jbar follows the theoretical expectation of an isothermal collapsing halo under conservation of specific angular momentum to within ...50 per cent, while the subsample of rotation-supported galaxies are equally well described by a simple model in which the disc angular momentum is just enough to maintain marginally stable discs. We extracted evolutionary tracks of the stellar spin parameter of EAGLE galaxies and found that the fate of their j sub( stars) at z = 0 depends sensitively on their star formation and merger histories. From these tracks, we identified two distinct physical channels behind low j sub( stars) galaxies at z = 0: (i) galaxy mergers, and (ii) early star formation quenching. The latter can produce galaxies with low jstars and early-type morphologies even in the absence of mergers. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)
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