arXiv subjects

Denise Hung

Publications and source records attributed to Denise Hung.

22 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Physical Characterisation of Interstellar Comet 2I/2019 Q4 (Borisov)

We present a study of interstellar comet 2I/2019 Q4 (Borisov) using both preperihelion and postperihelion observations spanning late September 2019 through late January 2020. The intrinsic brightness of the comet was observed to continuously decline throughout the timespan, likely due to the decreasing effective scattering cross-section as a result of volatile sublimation with a slope of $-0.43 \pm 0.02$ km$^{2}$ d$^{-1}$. We witnessed no significant change in the slightly reddish colour of the comet, with mean values of $\left \langle g - r \right \rangle = 0.68 \pm 0.04$, $\left \langle r - i \right \rangle = 0.23 \pm 0.03$, and the normalised reflectivity gradient across the $g$ and $i$ bands $\overline{S'} \left(g,i\right) = \left(10.6 \pm 1.4\right)$ % per $10^3$ Å, all unremarkable in the context of solar system comets. Using the available astrometric observations, we confidently detect the nongravitational acceleration of the comet following a shallow heliocentric distance dependency of $r_{\rm H}^{-1 \pm 1}$. Accordingly, we estimate that the nucleus is most likely $\lesssim$0.4 km in radius, and that a fraction of $\gtrsim$0.2% of the total nucleus in mass has been eroded due to the sublimation activity since the earliest observation of the comet in 2018 December by the time of perihelion. Our morphology simulation suggests that the dust ejection speed increased from $\sim$4 m s$^{-1}$ in September 2019 to $\sim$7 m s$^{-1}$ around perihelion for the optically dominant dust grains of $β\sim 0.01$, and that the observable dust grains are no smaller than micron size.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2019

The Properties of Radio and Mid-infrared Detected Galaxies and the Effect of Environment on the Co-evolution of AGN and Star Formation at $z \sim 1$

In this study we investigate 179 radio-IR galaxies drawn from a sample of spectroscopically-confirmed galaxies that are detected in radio and mid-infrared (MIR) in the redshift range of $0.55 \leq z \leq 1.30$ in the Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey. We constrain the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) contribution in the total IR luminosity (f$_{\text{AGN}}$), and estimate the AGN luminosity (L$_{\text{AGN}}$) and the star formation rate (SFR) using the CIGALE Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) fitting routine. Based on the f$_{\text{AGN}}$ and radio luminosity, radio-IR galaxies are split into: galaxies that host either high or low f$_{\text{AGN}}$ AGN (high-/low-f$_{\text{AGN}}$), and star forming galaxies with little to no AGN activity (SFGs). We study the colour, stellar mass, radio luminosity, L$_{\text{AGN}}$ and SFR properties of the three radio-IR sub-samples, comparing to a spec-IR sample drawn from spectroscopically-confirmed galaxies that are also detected in MIR. No significant difference between radio luminosity of these sub-samples was found, which could be due to the combined contribution of radio emission from AGN and star formation. We find a positive relationship between L$_{\text{AGN}}$and specific SFR (sSFR) for both AGN sub-samples, strongly suggesting a co-evolution scenario of AGN and SF in these galaxies. A toy model is designed to demonstrate this co-evolution scenario, where we find that, in almost all cases, a rapid quenching timescale is required, which we argue is a signature of AGN quenching. The environmental preference for intermediate/infall regions of clusters/groups remains across the co-evolution scenario, which suggests that galaxies might be in an orbital motion around the cluster/group during the scenario.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2019

Persistence of the Color-Density Relation and Efficient Environmental Quenching to $z\sim1.4$

Using ~5000 spectroscopically-confirmed galaxies drawn from the Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey we investigate the relationship between color and galaxy density for galaxy populations of various stellar masses in the redshift range $0.55 \le z \le 1.4$. The fraction of galaxies with colors consistent with no ongoing star formation ($f_q$) is broadly observed to increase with increasing stellar mass, increasing galaxy density, and decreasing redshift, with clear differences observed in $f_q$ between field and group/cluster galaxies at the highest redshifts studied. We use a semi-empirical model to generate mock group/cluster galaxies unaffected by environmental processes and compare them to observed populations to constrain the environmental quenching efficiency ($Ψ_{convert}$). High-density environments from $0.55 \le z \le 1.4$ appear capable of efficiently quenching galaxies with $\log(M_{\ast}/M_{\odot})>10.45$. Lower stellar mass galaxies also appear efficiently quenched at the lowest redshifts, but this efficiency drops precipitously with increasing redshift. Quenching efficiencies, combined with simulated group/cluster accretion histories and results from a companion ORELSE study, are used to constrain the average time from group/cluster accretion to quiescence and the time between accretion and the inception of quenching. These timescales were constrained to be <$t_{convert}$>=$2.4\pm0.3$ and <$t_{delay}$>=$1.3\pm0.4$ Gyr, respectively, for galaxies with $\log(M_{\ast}/M_{\odot})>10.45$ and <$t_{convert}$>=$3.3\pm0.3$ and <$t_{delay}$>=$2.2\pm0.4$ Gyr for lower stellar mass galaxies. These quenching efficiencies and associated timescales are used to rule out certain environmental mechanisms as being those primarily responsible for transforming the star-formation properties of galaxies over this 4 Gyr window in cosmic time.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

Conditional Quenching: A detailed look at the SFR-Density Relation at z ~ 0.9 from ORELSE

We present a study of the star-formation rate (SFR)-density relation at z ~ 0.9 using data drawn from the Observations of Redshift Evolution in Large Scale Environments (ORELSE) survey. We find that SFR does depend on environment, but only for intermediate-stellar mass galaxies (10^10.1 < M* / Msol < 10^10.8) wherein the median SFR at the highest densities is 0.2-0.3 dex less than at lower densities at a significance of 4 sigma. Interestingly, mass does not drive SFR; galaxies that are more/less massive have SFRs that vary at most by ~20% across all environments showing no statistically significant dependence. We further split galaxies into low-redshift (z ~ 0.8) and high-redshift (z ~ 1.05) subsamples and observe nearly identical behavior. We devise a simple toy model to explore possible star-formation histories (SFHs) for galaxies evolving between these redshifts. The key assumption in this model is that star-forming galaxies in a given environment-stellar mass bin can be described as a superposition of two exponential timescales (SFR ~ e^(-t/tau)): a long-tau timescale with tau = 4 Gyr to simulate "normal" star-forming galaxies, and a short-tau timescale with free tau (between 0.3 < tau/Gyr < 2) to simulate galaxies on a quenching trajectory. In general we find that galaxies residing in low/high environmental densities are more heavily weighted to the long-tau/short-tau pathways respectively, which we argue is a signature of environmental quenching. Furthermore, for intermediate-stellar mass galaxies this transition begins at intermediate-density environments suggesting that environmental quenching is relevant in group-like halos and/or cluster infall regions.

astro-ph.GA↗