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C. D. P. Lagos

Publications and source records attributed to C. D. P. Lagos.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Recovering $λ_R$ and $V/σ$ from seeing-dominated IFS data

Observers experience a series of limitations when measuring galaxy kinematics, such as variable seeing conditions and aperture size. These effects can be reduced using empirical corrections, but these equations are usually applicable within a restrictive set of boundary conditions (e.g. Sérsic indices within a given range) which can lead to biases when trying to compare measurements made across a full kinematic survey. In this work, we present new corrections for two widely used kinematic parameters, $λ_R$ and $V/σ$, that are applicable across a broad range of galaxy shapes, measurement radii and ellipticities. We take a series of mock observations of N-body galaxy models and use these to quantify the relationship between the observed kinematic parameters, structural properties and different seeing conditions. Derived corrections are then tested using the full catalogue of galaxies, including hydro-dynamic models from the EAGLE simulation. Our correction is most effective for regularly-rotating systems, yet the kinematic parameters of all galaxies -- fast, slow and irregularly rotating systems -- are recovered successfully. We find that $λ_R$ is more easily corrected than $V/σ$, with relative deviations of 0.02 and 0.06 dex respectively. The relationship between $λ_R$ and $V/σ$, as described by the parameter $κ$, also has a minor dependence on seeing conditions. These corrections will be particularly useful for stellar kinematic measurements in current and future integral field spectroscopic (IFS) surveys of galaxies.

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FLASH Early Science -- Discovery of an intervening HI 21-cm absorber from an ASKAP survey of the GAMA 23 field

We present early science results from the First Large Absorption Survey in HI (FLASH), a spectroscopically blind survey for 21-cm absorption lines in cold hydrogen HI gas at cosmological distances using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). We have searched for HI absorption towards 1253 radio sources in the GAMA 23 field, covering redshifts between $z = 0.34$ and $0.79$ over a sky area of approximately 50 deg$^{2}$. In a purely blind search we did not obtain any detections of 21-cm absorbers above our reliability threshold. Assuming a fiducial value for the HI spin temperature of $T_{\rm spin}$ = 100 K and source covering fraction $c_{\rm f} = 1$, the total comoving absorption path length sensitive to all Damped Lyman $α$ Absorbers (DLAs; $N_{\rm HI} \geq 2 \times 10^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$) is $Δ{X} = 6.6 \pm 0.3$ ($Δ{z} = 3.7 \pm 0.2$) and super-DLAs ($N_{\rm HI} \geq 2 \times 10^{21}$ cm$^{-2}$) is $Δ{X} = 111 \pm 6$ ($Δ{z} = 63 \pm 3$). We estimate upper limits on the HI column density frequency distribution function that are consistent with measurements from prior surveys for redshifted optical DLAs, and nearby 21-cm emission and absorption. By cross matching our sample of radio sources with optical spectroscopic identifications of galaxies in the GAMA 23 field, we were able to detect 21-cm absorption at $z = 0.3562$ towards NVSS J224500$-$343030, with a column density of $N_{\rm HI} = (1.2 \pm 0.1) \times 10^{20} (T_{\rm spin}/100~\mathrm{K})$ cm$^{-2}$. The absorber is associated with GAMA J22450.05$-$343031.7, a massive early-type galaxy at an impact parameter of 17 kpc with respect to the radio source and which may contain a massive ($M_{\rm HI} \gtrsim 3 \times 10^{9}$ M$_{\odot}$) gas disc. Such gas-rich early types are rare, but have been detected in the nearby Universe.

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HI Asymmetries in LVHIS, VIVA and HALOGAS Galaxies

We present an analysis of morphological, kinematic and spectral asymmetries in observations of atomic neutral hydrogen (HI) gas from the Local Volume HI Survey (LVHIS), the VLA Imaging of Virgo in Atomic Gas (VIVA) survey and the Hydrogen Accretion in Local Galaxies Survey (HALOGAS). With the aim of investigating the impact of the local environment density and stellar mass on the measured HI asymmetries in future large HI surveys, we provide recommendations for the most meaningful measures of asymmetry for use in future analysis. After controlling for stellar mass, we find signs of statistically significant trends of increasing asymmetries with local density. The most significant trend we measure is for the normalised flipped spectrum residual ($A_{\mathrm{spec}}$), with mean LVHIS and VIVA values of $0.204\pm0.011$ and $0.615\pm0.068$ at average weighted $10^{\mathrm{th}}$ nearest-neighbour galaxy number densities of $\log(ρ_{10}/\mathrm{Mpc}^{-3})=-1.64$ and 0.88, respectively. Looking ahead to the WALLABY survey on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), we estimate that the number of detections will be sufficient to provide coverage over 5 orders of magnitude in both local density and stellar mass increasing the dynamic range and accuracy with which we can probe the effect of these properties on the asymmetry in the distribution of atomic gas in galaxies.

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The better half -- Asymmetric star-formation due to ram pressure in the EAGLE simulations

We use the EAGLE simulations to study the effects of the intra-cluster medium (ICM) on the spatially resolved star-formation activity in galaxies. We study three cases of galaxy asymmetry dividing each galaxy in two halves using the plane (i) perpendicular to the $\rm \texttt{velocity}$ direction, differentiating the galaxy part approaching to the cluster center, hereafter dubbed as the "leading half", and the opposite one "trailing half", (ii) perpendicular to the $\rm \texttt{radial}$ position of the satellite to the centre of the cluster, (iii) that maximizes the star-formation rate ($\rm SFR$) difference between the two halves. For (i), we find an enhancement of the $\rm SFR$, star formation efficiency ($\rm SFE$), and interstellar medium pressure in the leading half with respect to the trailing one and normal star-forming galaxies in the EAGLE simulation, and a clear overabundance of gas particles in their trailing. These results suggest that ram pressure (RP) is boosting the star formation by gas compression in the leading half, and transporting the gas to the trailing half. This effect is more pronounced in satellites of intermediate stellar masses $\rm 10^{9.5-10.5} M_{\odot}$, with gas masses above $\rm 10^{9} M_{\odot}$, and located within one virial radius or in the most massive clusters. In (iii) we find an alignment between the velocity and the vector perpendicular to the plane that maximizes the $\rm SFR$ difference between the two halves. It suggests that finding this plane in real galaxies can provide insights into the velocity direction.

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The high redshift SFR-M* relation is sensitive to the employed star formation rate and stellar mass indicators: Towards addressing the tension between observations and simulations

There is a severe tension between the observed star formation rate (SFR) - stellar mass (${\rm M}_{\star}$) relations reported by different authors at $z = 1-4$. In addition, the observations have not been successfully reproduced by state-of-the-art cosmological simulations which tend to predict a factor of 2-4 smaller SFRs at a fixed ${\rm M}_{\star}$. We examine the evolution of the SFR$-{\rm M}_{\star}$ relation of $z = 1-4 $ galaxies using the SKIRT simulated spectral energy distributions of galaxies sampled from the EAGLE simulations. We derive SFRs and stellar masses by mimicking different observational techniques. We find that the tension between observed and simulated SFR$-{\rm M}_{\star}$ relations is largely alleviated if similar methods are used to infer the galaxy properties. We find that relations relying on infrared wavelengths (e.g. 24 ${\rm μm}$, MIPS - 24, 70 and 160 ${\rm μm}$ or SPIRE - 250, 350, 500 ${\rm μm}$) have SFRs that exceed the intrinsic relation by 0.5 dex. Relations that rely on the spectral energy distribution fitting technique underpredict the SFRs at a fixed stellar mass by -0.5 dex at $z \sim 4$ but overpredict the measurements by 0.3 dex at $z \sim 1$. Relations relying on dust-corrected rest-frame UV luminosities, are flatter since they overpredict/underpredict SFRs for low/high star forming objects and yield deviations from the intrinsic relation from 0.10 dex to -0.13 dex at $z \sim 4$. We suggest that the severe tension between different observational studies can be broadly explained by the fact that different groups employ different techniques to infer their SFRs.

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The HI Velocity Function: a test of cosmology or baryon physics?

Accurately predicting the shape of the HI velocity function of galaxies is regarded widely as a fundamental test of any viable dark matter model. Straightforward analyses of cosmological $N$-body simulations imply that the $Λ$CDM model predicts an overabundance of low circular velocity galaxies when compared to observed HI velocity functions. More nuanced analyses that account for the relationship between galaxies and their host haloes suggest that how we model the influence of baryonic processes has a significant impact on HI velocity function predictions. We explore this in detail by modelling HI emission lines of galaxies in the SHARK semi-analytic galaxy formation model, built on the SURFS suite of $Λ$CDM $N$-body simulations. We create a simulated ALFALFA survey, in which we apply the survey selection function and account for effects such as beam confusion, and compare simulated and observed HI velocity width distributions, finding differences of $\lesssim 50$%, orders of magnitude smaller than the discrepancies reported in the past. This is a direct consequence of our careful treatment of survey selection effects and, importantly, how we model the relationship between galaxy and halo circular velocity - the HI mass-maximum circular velocity relation of galaxies is characterised by a large scatter. These biases are complex enough that building a velocity function from the observed HI line widths cannot be done reliably.

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WALLABY Early Science - III. An HI Study of the Spiral Galaxy NGC 1566

This paper reports on the atomic hydrogen gas (HI) observations of the spiral galaxy NGC 1566 using the newly commissioned Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope. We measure an integrated HI flux density of $180.2$ Jy km s$^{-1}$ emanating from this galaxy, which translates to an HI mass of $1.94\times10^{10}$M$_\circ$ at an assumed distance of $21.3$ Mpc. Our observations show that NGC 1566 has an asymmetric and mildly warped HI disc. The HI-to-stellar mass fraction of NGC 1566 is $0.29$, which is high in comparison with galaxies that have the same stellar mass ($10^{10.8}$M$_\circ$). We also derive the rotation curve of this galaxy to a radius of $50$ kpc and fit different mass models to it. The NFW, Burkert and pseudo-isothermal dark matter halo profiles fit the observed rotation curve reasonably well and recover dark matter fractions of $0.62$, $0.58$ and $0.66$, respectively. Down to the column density sensitivity of our observations ($N_{HI} = 3.7\times10^{19}$ cm$^{-2}$), we detect no HI clouds connected to, or in the nearby vicinity of, the HI disc of NGC 1566 nor nearby interacting systems. We conclude that, based on a simple analytic model, ram pressure interactions with the IGM can affect the HI disc of NGC 1566 and is possibly the reason for the asymmetries seen in the HI morphology of NGC 1566.

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PKSB1740-517: An ALMA view of the cold gas feeding a distant interacting young radio galaxy

Cold neutral gas is a key ingredient for growing the stellar and central black hole mass in galaxies throughout cosmic history. We have used the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) to detect a rare example of redshifted $^{12}$CO(2-1) absorption in PKS B1740-517, a young ($t \sim 1.6 \times 10^{3}$ yr) and luminous ($L_{\rm 5 GHz} \sim 6.6 \times 10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$ ) radio galaxy at $z = 0.44$ that is undergoing a tidal interaction with at least one lower-mass companion. The coincident HI 21-cm and molecular absorption have very similar line profiles and reveal a reservoir of cold gas ($M_{\rm gas} \sim 10^{7} - 10^{8}$ M$_{\odot}$), likely distributed in a disc or ring within a few kiloparsecs of the nucleus. A separate HI component is kinematically distinct and has a very narrow line width ($Δ{v}_{\rm FWHM} \lesssim 5$ km s$^{-1}$), consistent with a single diffuse cloud of cold ($T_{\rm k} \sim 100$ K) atomic gas. The $^{12}$CO(2-1) absorption is not associated with this component, which suggests that the cloud is either much smaller than 100 pc along our sight-line and/or located in low-metallicity gas that was possibly tidally stripped from the companion. We argue that the gas reservoir in PKS B1740-517 may have accreted onto the host galaxy $\sim$50 Myr before the young radio AGN was triggered, but has only recently reached the nucleus. This is consistent with the paradigm that powerful luminous radio galaxies are triggered by minor mergers and interactions with low-mass satellites and represent a brief, possibly recurrent, active phase in the life cycle of massive early type galaxies.

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The disk averaged star formation relation for Local Volume dwarf galaxies

Spatially resolved HI studies of dwarf galaxies have provided a wealth of precision data. However these high-quality, resolved observations are only possible for handful of dwarf galaxies in the Local Volume. Future HI surveys are unlikely to improve the current situation. We therefore explore a method for estimating the surface density of the atomic gas from global HI parameters, which are conversely widely available. We perform empirical tests using galaxies with resolved HI maps, and find that our approximation produces values for the surface density of atomic hydrogen within typically 0.5dex of the true value. We apply this method to a sample of 147 galaxies drawn from modern near-infrared stellar photometric surveys. With this sample we confirm a strict correlation between the atomic gas surface density and the star formation rate surface density, that is vertically offset from the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation by a factor of 10-30, and significantly steeper than the classical N=1.4 of Kennicutt (1998). We further infer the molecular fraction in the sample of low surface brightness, predominantly dwarf galaxies by assuming that the star formation relationship with molecular gas observed for spiral galaxies also holds in these galaxies, finding a molecular-to-atomic gas mass fraction within the range of 5-15%. Comparison of the data to available models shows that a model in which the thermal pressure balances the vertical gravitational field captures better the shape of the $Σ_{\rm SFR}-Σ_{\rm gas}$ relationship. However, such models fail to reproduce the data completely, suggesting that thermal pressure plays an important role in the disks of dwarf galaxies.

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Angular momentum evolution in Dark Matter haloes: a study of the Bolshoi and Millennium simulations

We use three different cosmological dark matter simulations to study how the orientation of the angular momentum vector (AM) in dark matter haloes evolve with time. We find that haloes in this kind of simulations are constantly affected by a spurious change of mass, which translates into an artificial change in the orientation of the AM. After removing the haloes affected by artificial mass change, we found that the change in the orientation of the AM vector is correlated with time. The change in its angle and direction (i.e. the angle subtended by the AM vector in two consecutive timesteps) that affect the AM vector has a dependence on the change of mass that affects a halo, the time elapsed in which the change of mass occurs and the halo mass. We create a Monte-Carlo simulation that reproduces the change of angle and direction of the AM vector. We reproduce the angular separation of the AM vector since a look back time of 8.5 Gyrs to today ( $\rm α$) with an accuracy of approximately 0.05 in $\rm cos(α)$. We are releasing this Monte-Carlo simulation together with this publication. We also create a Monte Carlo simulation that reproduces the change of the AM modulus. We find that haloes in denser environments display the most dramatic evolution in their AM direction, as well as haloes with a lower specific AM modulus. These relations could be used to improve the way we follow the AM vector in low-resolution simulations.

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On the frequency of star-forming galaxies in the vicinity of powerful AGNs: The case of SMM J04135+10277

(Abridged) In the last decade several massive molecular gas reservoirs were found <100 kpc distance from active galactic nuclei (AGNs), residing in gas-rich companion galaxies. The study of AGN-gas-rich companion systems opens the opportunity to determine whether the stellar mass of massive local galaxies was formed in their host after a merger event or outside of their host galaxy in a close starbursting companion and later incorporated via mergers. We study the quasar-companion galaxy system of SMM J04135+10277 (z=2.84) and investigate the expected frequency of quasar-starburst galaxy pairs at high redshift using a cosmological galaxy formation model. We use archive data and new APEX ArTeMiS data to construct and model the spectral energy distribution of SMM J04135. We also carry out a comprehensive analysis of the cosmological galaxy formation model GALFORM with the aim of characterising how typical the system of SMM J04135 is and whether quasar-star-forming galaxy pairs may constitute an important stage in galaxy evolution. The companion galaxy of SMM J04135 is a heavily dust-obscured starburst galaxy with a median star formation rate (SFR) of $700\,\rm{M_{\odot}\,yr^{-1}}$, median dust mass of $5.1\times 10^9\,\rm{M_{\odot}}$ and median dust luminosity of $\textrm 9.3 \times 10^{12}\,\rm{L_{\odot}}$. Our simulations, performed at z=2.8, suggest that SMM J04135 is not unique. In fact, at a distance of <100 kpc, 22% of our simulated quasar sample have at least one companion galaxy of a stellar mass $>10^8\, \rm{M_{\odot}}$, and 0.3% have at least one highly star-forming companion ($\rm{SFR}>100\,\rm{M_{\odot}\,yr^{-1}}$). Our results suggest that quasar-gas-rich companion galaxy systems are common phenomena in the early Universe and the high incidence of companions makes the study of such systems crucial to understand the growth and hierarchical build-up of galaxies and black holes.

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Galaxy Formation & Dark Matter Modelling in the Era of the Square Kilometre Array

Theoretical galaxy formation models are an established and powerful tool for interpreting the astrophysical significance of observational data, particularly galaxy surveys. Such models have been utilised with great success by optical surveys such as 2dFGRS and SDSS, but their application to radio surveys of cold gas in galaxies has been limited. In this chapter we describe recent developments in the modelling of the cold gas properties in the models, and how these developments are essential if they are to be applied to cold gas surveys of the kind that will be carried out with the SKA. By linking explicitly a galaxy's star formation rate to the abundance of molecular hydrogen in the galaxy rather than cold gas abundance, as was assumed previously, the latest models reproduce naturally many of the global atomic and molecular hydrogen properties of observed galaxies. We review some of the key results of the latest models and highlight areas where further developments are necessary. We discuss also how model predictions can be most accurately compared with observational data, what challenges we expect when creating synthetic galaxy surveys in the SKA era, and how the SKA can be used to test models of dark matter.

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The initial mass function and star formation law in the outer disc of NGC 2915

Using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) ACS/WFC data we present the photometry and spatial distribution of resolved stellar populations in the outskirts of NGC 2915, a blue compact dwarf with an extended HI disc. These observations reveal an elliptical distribution of red giant branch stars, and a clumpy distribution of main-sequence stars that correlate with the HI gas distribution. We constrain the upper-end initial mass function (IMF) and determine the star formation law (SFL) in this field, using the observed main-sequence stars and an assumed constant star formation rate. Previously published Hα observations of the field, which show one faint HII region, are used to provide further constraints on the IMF. We find that the main-sequence luminosity function analysis alone results in a best-fitting IMF with a power-law slope α=-2.85 and upper-mass limit M$_\rm{u}$ = 60 M$_\odot$. However, if we assume that all Hα emission is confined to HII regions then the upper-mass limit is restricted to M$_\rm{u}$ $\le$20 M$_\odot$. For the luminosity function fit to be correct we have to discount the Hα observations implying significant diffuse ionized gas or escaping ionizing photons. Combining the HST photometry with HI imaging we find the SFL has a power law index $N=1.53 \pm 0.21$. Applying these results to the entire outer HI disc indicates that it contributes 11--28% of the total recent star formation in NGC 2915, depending on whether the IMF is constant within the disc or varies from the centre to the outer region.

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A new model of galaxy formation: How sensitive are predicted galaxy luminosities to the choice of SPS model?

We present a new release of the GALFORM semi-analytical model of galaxy formation and evolution, which exploits a Millennium Simulation-class N-body run performed with the WMAP7 cosmology. We use this new model to study the impact of the choice of stellar population synthesis (SPS) model on the predicted evolution of the galaxy luminosity function. The semi-analytical model is run using seven different SPS models. In each case we obtain the rest-frame luminosity function in the far-ultra-violet, optical and near-infrared (NIR) wavelength ranges. We find that both the predicted rest-frame ultra-violet and optical luminosity function are insensitive to the choice of SPS model. However, we find that the predicted evolution of the rest-frame NIR luminosity function depends strongly on the treatment of the thermally pulsating asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) stellar phase in the SPS models, with differences larger than a factor of 2 for model galaxies brighter than $M_{\rm AB}(K)-5$log$h<-22$ ($\sim$L$_*$ for $0\leq z\leq 1.5$). We have also explored the predicted number counts of galaxies, finding remarkable agreement between the results with different choices of SPS model, except when selecting galaxies with very red optical-NIR colours. The predicted number counts of these extremely red galaxies appear to be more affected by the treatment of star formation in disks than by the treatment of TP-AGB stars in the SPS models.

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On the role of feedback in shaping the cosmic abundance and clustering of neutral atomic hydrogen in galaxies

We investigate the impact of feedback - from supernovae (SNe), active galactic nuclei (AGN) and a photo-ionizing background at high redshifts - on the neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) mass function, the $b_{\rm J}$ band luminosity function, and the spatial clustering of these galaxies at $z$=0. We use a version of the semi-analytical galaxy formation model GALFORM that calculates self-consistently the amount of HI in a galaxy as a function of cosmic time and links its star formation rate to its mass of molecular hydrogen (H$_2$). We find that a systematic increase or decrease in the strength of SNe feedback leads to a systematic decrease or increase in the amplitudes of the luminosity and HI mass functions, but has little influence on their overall shapes. Varying the strength of AGN feedback influences only the numbers of the brightest or most HI massive galaxies, while the impact of varying the strength of photo-ionization feedback is restricted to changing the numbers of the faintest or least HI massive galaxies.Our results suggest that the HI mass function is a more sensitive probe of the consequences of cosmological reionization for galaxy formation than the luminosity function. We find that increasing the strength of any of the modes of feedback acts to weaken the clustering strength of galaxies, regardless of their HI-richness. In contrast, weaker AGN feedback has little effect on the clustering strength whereas weaker SNe feedback increases the clustering strength of HI-poor galaxies more strongly than HI-rich galaxies. These results indicate that forthcoming HI surveys on next generation radio telescopes such as the Square Kilometre Array and its pathfinders will be exploited most fruitfully as part of multiwavelength survey campaigns.

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