arXiv subjects

Jacopo Chevallard

Publications and source records attributed to Jacopo Chevallard.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Extremely metal-poor galaxies with HST/COS: laboratories for models of low-metallicity massive stars and high-redshift galaxies

Ultraviolet (UV) observations of local star-forming galaxies have begun to establish an empirical baseline for interpreting the rest-UV spectra of reionization-era galaxies. However, existing high-ionization emission line measurements at $z>6$ ($\mathrm{W_{C IV, 0}} \gtrsim 20$ Å) are uniformly stronger than observed locally ($\mathrm{W_{C IV, 0}} \lesssim 2$ Å), likely due to the relatively high metallicities ($Z/Z_\odot > 0.1$) typically probed by UV surveys of nearby galaxies. We present new HST/COS spectra of six nearby ($z<0.01$) extremely metal-poor galaxies (XMPs, $Z/Z_\odot \lesssim 0.1$) targeted to address this limitation and provide constraints on the highly-uncertain ionizing spectra powered by low-metallicity massive stars. Our data reveal a range of spectral features, including one of the most prominent nebular C IV doublets yet observed in local star-forming systems and strong He II emission. Using all published UV observations of local XMPs to-date, we find that nebular C IV emission is ubiquitous in very high specific star formation rate systems at low metallicity, but still find equivalent widths smaller than those measured in individual lensed systems at $z>6$. Our moderate-resolution HST/COS data allow us to conduct an analysis of the stellar winds in a local nebular C IV emitter, which suggests that some of the tension with $z>6$ data may be due to existing local samples not yet probing sufficiently high $\mathrm{α/Fe}$ abundance ratios. Our results indicate that C IV emission can play a crucial role in the JWST and ELT era by acting as an accessible signpost of very low metallicity ($Z/Z_\odot < 0.1$) massive stars in assembling reionization-era systems.

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arXiv2019

MMT/MMIRS spectroscopy of $z=1.3-2.4$ extreme [OIII] emitters: Implications for galaxies in the reionization-era

Galaxies in the reionization-era have been shown to have prominent [OIII]+H$β$ emission. Little is known about the gas conditions and radiation field of this population, making it challenging to interpret the spectra emerging at $z\gtrsim6$. Motivated by this shortcoming, we have initiated a large MMT spectroscopic survey identifying rest-frame optical emission lines in 227 intense [OIII] emitting galaxies at $1.3<z<2.4$. This sample complements the MOSDEF and KBSS surveys, extending to much lower stellar masses ($10^7-10^8 M_\odot$) and larger specific star formation rates ($5-300$ Gyr$^{-1}$), providing a window on galaxies directly following a burst or recent upturn in star formation. The hydrogen ionizing production efficiency ($ξ_{\rm{ion}}$) is found to increase with the [OIII] EW, in a manner similar to that found in local galaxies by Chevallard et al. (2018). We describe how this relationship helps explain the anomalous success rate in identifying Ly$α$ emission in $z\gtrsim7$ galaxies with strong [OIII]+H$β$ emission. We probe the impact of the intense radiation field on the ISM using O32 and Ne3O2, two ionization-sensitive indices. Both are found to scale with the [OIII] EW, revealing extreme ionization conditions not commonly seen in older and more massive galaxies. In the most intense line emitters, the indices have very large average values (O32 $=9.1$, Ne3O2 $=0.5$) that have been shown to be linked to ionizing photon escape. We discuss implications for the nature of galaxies most likely to have O32 values associated with significant LyC escape. Finally we consider the optimal strategy for JWST spectroscopic investigations of galaxies at $z\gtrsim10$ where the strongest rest-frame optical lines are no longer visible with NIRSpec.

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arXiv2019

Early Low-Mass Galaxies and Star-Cluster Candidates at z~6-9 Identified by the Gravitational Lensing Technique and Deep Optical/Near-Infrared Imaging

We present very faint dropout galaxies at z~6-9 with a stellar mass M* down to M*~10^6Mo that are found in deep optical/near-infrared (NIR) images of the full data sets of the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) program in conjunction with deep ground-based and Spitzer images and gravitational lensing magnification effects. We investigate stellar populations of the HFF dropout galaxies with the optical/NIR photometry and BEAGLE models made of self-consistent stellar population synthesis and photoionization models, carefully including strong nebular emission impacting on the photometry. We identify 357 galaxies with M*~10^6-10^9Mo, and find that a stellar mass to UV luminosity L_UV ratio M*/L_UV is nearly constant at M*~10^6-10^9Mo. Our best-estimate M*/L_UV function is comparable to a model of star-formation duration time of 100 Myr, but 2-7 times higher than the one of 10 Myr assumed in a previous study (at the 5sigma level) that would probably underestimate M* of faint galaxies. We derive the galaxy stellar mass functions (GSMFs) at z~6-9 that agree with those obtained by previous studies with no M*/L_UV assumptions at M*>~10^8Mo, and that extends to M*~10^6Mo. Estimating the stellar mass densities rho* with the GSMFs, we find that rho* smoothly increases from log(rho*/[Mo Mpc^(-3)])=5.91 +0.75/-0.65 at z~9 to 6.21 +0.39/-0.37 at z~6-7, which is consistent with the one estimated from star-formation rate density measurements. In conjunction with the estimates of the galaxy effective radii R_e on the source plane, we have pinpointed two objects with low stellar masses (M*<=10^7Mo) and very compact morphologies (R_e<=40 physical pc) that are comparable with those of globular clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way today. These objects are candidates of star clusters that should be a part or a dominant component of high-redshift low-mass galaxy, some of which may be related to GCs today.

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arXiv2019

Abundant Serendipitous Emission Line Sources with JWST/NIRSpec

The James Webb Space Telescope will provide observational capabilities that far exceed those of current ground- or space-based instrumentation. In particular, the NIRSpec instrument will take highly sensitive spectroscopic data for hundreds of objects simultaneously from 0.6-5.3 microns. Current photometric observations suggest a large and increasing number of faint (M_UV > -16) galaxies at high-redshift, with increasing evidence that galaxies at these redshifts have optical emission lines with extremely high equivalent widths. A simple model of their emission line fluxes and number density evolution with redshift is used to predict the number of galaxies that NIRSpec will serendipitously observe during normal observations with the microshutter array. At exposure times of ~20 hours in the low-resolution prism mode, the model predicts that, on average, every open 1x3 'microslit' will contain an un-targeted galaxy with a detectable [O III] and/or H$α$ emission line; while most of these detections are predicted to be of [O III], H $α$ detections alone would still number 0.56 per open 'microslit' for this exposure time. Many of these objects are spectroscopically detectable even when they are fainter than current photometric limits and/or their flux centroids lie outside of the open microshutter area. The predicted number counts for such galaxies match z ~ 2 observations of [O III] emitters from slitless grism spectroscopic surveys, as well as theoretical predictions based on sophisticated modeling of galaxy spectral energy distributions. These serendipitous detections could provide the largest numbers of z > 6 spectroscopic confirmations in the deepest NIRSpec surveys.

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arXiv2018

A Two-Dimensional Spectroscopic Study of Emission Line Galaxies in the Faint Infrared Grism Survey (FIGS) I: Detection Method and Catalog

We present the results from the application of a two-dimensional emission line detection method, EMission-line two-Dimensional (EM2D), to the near-infrared G102 grism observations obtained with the Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3) as part of the Cycle 22 {\em Hubble Space Telescope} Treasury Program: the Faint Infrared Grism Survey (FIGS). Using the EM2D method, we have assembled a catalog of emission line galaxies (ELGs) with resolved star formation from each of the four FIGS fields. Not only can one better assess the global properties of ELGs, but the EM2D method allows for the analysis and an improved study of the individual emission-line region {\it within} each galaxy. This paper includes a description of the methodology, advantages, and the first results of the EM2D method applied to ELGs in FIGS. The advantage of 2D emission line measurements includes significant improvement of galaxy redshift measurements, approaching the level of accuracy seen in high-spectral-resolution data, but with greater efficiency; and the ability to identify and measure the properties of multiple sites of star-formation and over scales of $\sim$ 1 kpc within individual galaxies out to z $\sim$ 4. The EM2D method also significantly improves the reliability of high-redshift ($z\sim7$) Lyman-$α$ detections. Coupled with the wide field of view and high efficiency of space-based grism observations, EM2D provides a noteworthy improvement on the physical parameters that can be extracted from grism observations.

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arXiv2018

Simulating and interpreting deep observations in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field with the JWST/NIRSpec low-resolution 'prism'

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable the detection of optical emission lines in galaxies spanning a broad range of luminosities out to redshifts z>10. Measurements of key galaxy properties, such as star formation rate and metallicity, through these observations will provide unique insight into, e.g., the role of feedback from stars and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in regulating galaxy evolution, the co-evolution of AGNs and host galaxies, the physical origin of the 'main sequence' of star-forming galaxies and the contribution by star-forming galaxies to cosmic reionization. We present an original framework to simulate and analyse observations performed with the Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on board JWST. We use the BEAGLE tool (BayEsian Analysis of GaLaxy sEds) to build a semi-empirical catalogue of galaxy spectra based on photometric spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of dropout galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). We demonstrate that the resulting catalogue of galaxy spectra satisfies different types of observational constraints on high redshift galaxies, and use it as input to simulate NIRSpec/prism (R~100) observations. We show that a single 'deep' (~100 ks) NIRSpec/prism pointing in the HUDF will enable S/N>3 detections of multiple optical emission lines in ~30 (~60) galaxies at z>6 (z~4-6) down to m_F160W<30 AB mag. Such observations will allow measurements of galaxy star formation rates, ionization parameters and gas-phase metallicities within factors of 1.5, mass-to-light ratios within a factor of 2, galaxy ages within a factor of 3 and V-band attenuation optical depths with a precision of 0.3.

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arXiv2018

The MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey: XII. MgII emission and absorption in star-forming galaxies

The physical origin of the near-ultraviolet MgII emission remains an under-explored domain, contrary to more typical emission lines detected in the spectra of star-forming galaxies. We explore the nebular and physical properties for a sample of 381 galaxies between 0.70 < z < 2.34 drawn from the MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Survey. The spectra of these galaxies show a wide variety of profiles of the MgII 2796,2803 resonant doublet, from absorption to emission. We present a study on the main drivers for the detection of MgII emission in galaxy spectra. By exploiting photoionization models we verified that the emission-line ratios observed in galaxies with MgII in emission are consistent with nebular emission from HII regions. From a simultaneous analysis of MUSE spectra and ancillary HST information via spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting, we find that galaxies with MgII in emission have lower stellar masses, smaller sizes, bluer spectral slopes and lower optical depth than those with absorption. This leads us to suggest that MgII emission is a potential tracer of physical conditions not merely related to those of the ionized gas. We show that these differences in MgII emission/absorption can be explained in terms of a higher dust and neutral gas content in the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies showing MgII in absorption, confirming the extreme sensitivity of MgII to the presence of the neutral ISM. We conclude with an analogy between the MgII doublet and the Ly-alpha line, due to their resonant nature. Further investigations with current and future facilities, including JWST, are promising as the detection of MgII emission and its potential connection with Ly-alpha could provide new insights on the ISM content in the early Universe.

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arXiv2018

Physical properties and H-ionizing-photon production rates of extreme nearby star-forming regions

Measurements of the galaxy UV luminosity function at z>6 suggest that young stars hosted in low-mass star-forming galaxies produced the bulk of hydrogen-ionizing photons necessary to reionize the intergalactic medium (IGM) by redshift z~6. Whether star-forming galaxies dominated cosmic reionization, however, also depends on their stellar populations and interstellar medium properties, which set, among other things, the production rate of H-ionizing photons, $ξ_\text{ion}^\star$, and the fraction of these escaping into the IGM. Given the difficulty of constraining with existing observatories the physical properties of z>6 galaxies, in this work we focus on a sample of ten nearby objects showing UV spectral features comparable to those observed at z>6. We use the new-generation Beagle tool to model the UV-to-optical photometry and UV/optical emission lines of these Local 'analogues' of high-redshift galaxies, finding that our relatively simple, yet fully self-consistent, physical model can successfully reproduce the different observables considered. Our galaxies span a broad range of metallicities and are characterised by high ionization parameters, low dust attenuation, and very young stellar populations. Through our analysis, we derive a novel diagnostic of the production rate of H-ionizing photons per unit UV luminosity, $ξ_\text{ion}^\star$, based on the equivalent width of the bright $[\text{OIII}] λ4959,5007$ doublet, which does not require measurements of H-recombination lines. This new diagnostic can be used to estimate $ξ_\text{ion}^\star$ from future direct measurements of the $[\text{OIII}] λ4959,5007$ line using JWST/NIRSpec (out to z~9.5), and by exploiting the contamination by $\text{H}β+ [\text{OIII}] λ4959,5007$ of photometric observations of distant galaxies, for instance from existing Spitzer/IRAC data and from future ones with JWST/NIRCam.

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arXiv2018

SILVERRUSH. V. Census of Lya, [OIII]5007, Ha, and [CII]158um Line Emission with ~1000 LAEs at z=4.9-7.0 Revealed with Subaru/HSC

We investigate Lya, [OIII]5007, Ha, and [CII]158um emission from 1124 galaxies at z=4.9-7.0. Our sample is composed of 1092 Lya emitters (LAEs) at z=4.9, 5.7, 6.6, and 7.0 identified by Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) narrowband surveys covered by Spitzer large area survey with Subaru/HSC (SPLASH) and 34 galaxies at z=5.148-7.508 with deep ALMA [CII]158um data in the literature. Fluxes of strong rest-frame optical lines of [OIII] and Ha (Hb) are constrained by significant excesses found in the SPLASH 3.6 and 4.5um photometry. At z=4.9, we find that the rest-frame Ha equivalent width and the Lya escape fraction f_Lya positively correlate with the rest-frame Lya equivalent width EW^0_Lya. The f_Lya-EW^0_Lya correlation is similarly found at z~0-2, suggesting no evolution of the correlation over z~0-5. The typical ionizing photon production efficiency of LAEs is logxi_ion/[Hz erg^-1]~25.5 significantly (60-100%) higher than those of LBGs at a given UV magnitude. At z=5.7-7.0, there exists an interesting turn-over trend that the [OIII]/Ha flux ratio increases in EW^0_Lya~0-30 A, and then decreases out to EW^0_Lya~130 A. We also identify an anti-correlation between a [CII] luminosity to star-formation rate ratio (L_[CII]/SFR) and EW^0_Lya at the >99% confidence level. We carefully investigate physical origins of the correlations with stellar-synthesis and photoionization models, and find that a simple anti-correlation between EW_Lya^0 and metallicity explains self-consistently all of the correlations of Lya, Ha, [OIII]/Ha, and [CII] identified in our study, indicating detections of metal-poor (~0.03 Zo) galaxies with EW^0_Lya~200 A.

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arXiv2018

The JWST Extragalactic Mock Catalog: Modeling galaxy populations from the UV through the near-IR over thirteen billion years of cosmic history

We present an original phenomenological model to describe the evolution of galaxy number counts, morphologies, and spectral energy distributions across a wide range of redshifts (0.2 6]. Our model follows observed mass and luminosity functions of both star-forming and quiescent galaxies, and reproduces the redshift evolution of colors, sizes, star-formation and chemical properties of the observed galaxy population. Unlike other existing approaches, our model includes a self-consistent treatment of stellar and photoionized gas emission and dust attenuation based on the BEAGLE tool. The mock galaxy catalogs generated with our new model can be used to simulate and optimize extragalactic surveys with future facilities such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and to enable critical assessments of analysis procedures, interpretation tools, and measurement systematics for both photometric and spectroscopic data. As a first application of this work, we make predictions for the upcoming JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), a joint program of the JWST/NIRCam and NIRSpec Guaranteed Time Observations teams. We show that JADES will detect, with NIRCam imaging, thousands of galaxies at z>6, and tens at z>10 at m_AB<30 (5-sigma) within the 236 arcmin^2 of the survey. The JADES data will enable accurate constraints on the evolution of the UV luminosity function at z>8, and resolve the current debate about the rate of evolution of galaxies at z>8. Ready to use mock catalogs and software to generate new realizations are publicly available as the JAdes extraGalactic Ultradeep Artificial Realizations (JAGUAR) package.

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arXiv2017

Ultraviolet spectra of extreme nearby star-forming regions --- approaching a local reference sample for JWST

Nearby dwarf galaxies provide a unique laboratory in which to test stellar population models below $Z_\odot/2$. Such tests are particularly important for interpreting the surprising high-ionization UV line emission detected at $z>6$ in recent years. We present HST/COS ultraviolet spectra of ten nearby metal-poor star-forming galaxies selected to show He II emission in SDSS optical spectra. The targets span nearly a dex in gas-phase oxygen abundance ($7.8<12+\log\mathrm{O/H}<8.5$) and present uniformly large specific star formation rates (sSFR $\sim 10^2$ $\mathrm{Gyr}^{-1}$). The UV spectra confirm that metal-poor stellar populations can power extreme nebular emission in high-ionization UV lines, reaching C III] equivalent widths comparable to those seen in systems at $z\sim 6-7$. Our data reveal a marked transition in UV spectral properties with decreasing metallicity, with systems below $12+\log\mathrm{O/H}\lesssim 8.0$ ($Z/Z_\odot \lesssim 1/5$) presenting minimal stellar wind features and prominent nebular emission in He II and C IV. This is consistent with nearly an order of magnitude increase in ionizing photon production beyond the $\mathrm{He^+}$-ionizing edge relative to H-ionizing flux as metallicity decreases below a fifth solar, well in excess of standard stellar population synthesis predictions. Our results suggest that often neglected sources of energetic radiation such as stripped binary products and very massive O-stars produce a sharper change in the ionizing spectrum with decreasing metallicity than expected. Consequently, nebular emission in C IV and He II powered by these stars may provide useful metallicity constraints in the reionization era.

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arXiv2016

Modelling and interpreting spectral energy distributions of galaxies with BEAGLE

We present a new-generation tool to model and interpret spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies, which incorporates in a consistent way the production of radiation and its transfer through the interstellar and intergalactic media. This flexible tool, named BEAGLE (for BayEsian Analysis of GaLaxy sEds), allows one to build mock galaxy catalogues as well as to interpret any combination of photometric and spectroscopic galaxy observations in terms of physical parameters. The current version of the tool includes versatile modeling of the emission from stars and photoionized gas, attenuation by dust and accounting for different instrumental effects, such as spectroscopic flux calibration and line spread function. We show a first application of the BEAGLE tool to the interpretation of broadband SEDs of a published sample of ${\sim}10^4$ galaxies at redshifts $0.1 \lesssim z\lesssim8$. We find that the constraints derived on photometric redshifts using this multi-purpose tool are comparable to those obtained using public, dedicated photometric-redshift codes and quantify this result in a rigorous statistical way. We also show how the post-processing of BEAGLE output data with the Python extension PYP-BEAGLE allows the characterization of systematic deviations between models and observations, in particular through posterior predictive checks. The modular design of the BEAGLE tool allows easy extensions to incorporate, for example, the absorption by neutral galactic and circumgalactic gas, and the emission from an active galactic nucleus, dust and shock-ionized gas. Information about public releases of the BEAGLE tool will be maintained on http://www.jacopochevallard.org/beagle.

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arXiv2016

Lyman-alpha and CIII] Emission in z=7-9 Galaxies: Accelerated Reionization Around Luminous Star Forming Systems?

We discuss new Keck/MOSFIRE spectroscopic observations of four luminous galaxies at z~7-9 selected to have intense optical line emission by Roberts-Borsani et al. (2016). Previous follow-up has revealed Lyman-alpha in two of the four galaxies. Our new MOSFIRE observations confirm that Lyman-alpha is present in the entire sample. We detect Lyman-alpha emission in COS-zs7-1, confirming its redshift as z=7.154, and we detect Lyman-alpha in EGS-zs8-2 at z=7.477, verifying a tentative detection presented in an earlier study. The ubiquity of Lyman-alpha in this sample is puzzling given that the IGM is likely significantly neutral over 7 7 is expected to be strongly luminosity-dependent, with the most effective transmission occurring in systems with intense star formation.

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arXiv2015

Black hole formation and growth with non-Gaussian primordial density perturbations

Quasars powered by massive black holes (BHs) with mass estimates above a billion solar masses have been identified at redshift 6 and beyond. The existence of such BHs requires almost continuous growth at the Eddington limit for their whole lifetime, of order of one billion years. In this paper, we explore the possibility that positively skewed scale-dependent non-Gaussian primordial fluctuations may ease the assembly of massive BHs. In particular, they produce more low-mass halos at high redshift, thus altering the production of metals and ultra-violet flux, believed to be important factors in BH formation. Additionally, a higher number of progenitors and of nearly equal-mass halo mergers would boost the mass increase provided by BH-BH mergers and merger-driven accretion. We use a set of two cosmological simulations, with either Gaussian or scale-dependent non-Gaussian primordial fluctuations to perform a proof-of-concept experiment to estimate how BH formation and growth are altered. We estimate the BH number density and the fraction of halos where BHs form, for both simulations and for two popular scenarios of BH formation (remnants of the first generation of stars and direct collapse in the absence of metals and molecular hydrogen). We find that the fractions of halos where BHs form are almost identical, but that non-Gaussian primordial perturbations increase the total number density of BHs for the both BH formation scenarios. We also evolve BHs using merger trees extracted from the simulations and find that non-Gaussianities increase both the BH masses and the number of the most massive BHs.

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arXiv2014

Effect of primordial non-Gaussianities on the far-UV luminosity function of high-redshift galaxies: implications for cosmic reionization

[Abridged] Understanding how the intergalactic medium (IGM) was reionized at z > 6 is one of the big challenges of current high redshift astronomy. It requires modelling the collapse of the first astrophysical objects (Pop III stars, first galaxies) and their interaction with the IGM, while at the same time pushing current observational facilities to their limits. The observational and theoretical progress of the last few years have led to the emergence of a coherent picture in which the budget of hydrogen-ionizing photons is dominated by low-mass star-forming galaxies, with little contribution from Pop III stars and quasars. The reionization history of the Universe therefore critically depends on the number density of low-mass galaxies at high redshift. In this work, we explore how changes in the statistical properties of initial density fluctuations affect the formation of early galaxies. Following Habouzit et al. (2014), we run 5 N-body simulations with Gaussian and (scale-dependent) non-Gaussian initial conditions, all consistent with Planck constraints. By appealing to a galaxy formation model and to a population synthesis code, we compute the far-UV galaxy luminosity function down to M_UV = -14 at redshift 7 < z < 15. We find that models with strong primordial non-Gaussianities on < Mpc scales show a far-UV luminosity function significantly enhanced in low-mass galaxies. We adopt a reionization model calibrated from state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations and show that such non-Gaussianities leave a clear imprint on the Universe reionization history and electron Thomson scattering optical depth tau_E. Although current uncertainties in the physics of reionization and on the determination of tau_E still dominate the signatures of non-Gaussianities, our results suggest that tau_E could ultimately be used to constrain the statistical properties of initial density fluctuations.

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arXiv2014

Testing primordial non-Gaussianities on galactic scales at high redshift

Primordial non-Gaussianities provide an important test of inflationary models. Although the Planck CMB experiment has produced strong limits on non-Gaussianity on scales of clusters, there is still room for considerable non-Gaussianity on galactic scales. We have tested the effect of local non-Gaussianity on the high redshift galaxy population by running five cosmological N-body simulations down to z=6.5. For these simulations, we adopt the same initial phases, and either Gaussian or scale-dependent non-Gaussian primordial fluctuations, all consistent with the constraints set by Planck on clusters scales. We then assign stellar masses to each halo using the halo - stellar mass empirical relation of Behroozi et al. (2013). Our simulations with non-Gaussian initial conditions produce halo mass functions that show clear departures from those obtained from the analogous simulations with Gaussian initial conditions at z>~10. We observe a >0.3 dex enhancement of the low-end of the halo mass function, which leads to a similar effect on the galaxy stellar mass function, which should be testable with future galaxy surveys at z>10. As cosmic reionization is thought to be driven by dwarf galaxies at high redshift, our findings may have implications for the reionization history of the Universe.

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arXiv2013

Encoding the infrared excess (IRX) in the NUVrK color diagram for star-forming galaxies

We present an empirical method of assessing the star formation rate (SFR) of star-forming galaxies based on their locations in the rest-frame color-color diagram (NUV-r) vs (r-K). By using the Spitzer 24 micron sample in the COSMOS field (~16400 galaxies with 0.2 < z < 1.3) and a local GALEX-SDSS-SWIRE sample (~700 galaxies with z < 0.2), we show that the mean infrared excess = < L_IR / L_UV > can be described by a single vector, NRK, that combines the two colors. The calibration between and NRK allows us to recover the IR luminosity, L_IR, with an accuracy of ~0.21 dex for the COSMOS sample and ~0.27 dex for the local one. The SFRs derived with this method agree with the ones based on the observed (UV+IR) luminosities and on the spectral energy distribution fitting for the vast majority (~85 %) of the star-forming population. Thanks to a library of model galaxy SEDs with realistic prescriptions for the star formation history, we show that we need to include a two-component dust model (i.e., birth clouds and diffuse ISM) and a full distribution of galaxy inclinations in order to reproduce the behavior of the stripes in the NUVrK diagram. In conclusion, the NRK method, based only on rest-frame UV and optical colors available in most of the extragalactic fields, offers a simple alternative of assessing the SFR of star-forming galaxies in the absence of far-IR or spectral diagnostic observations.

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arXiv2013

Insights into the content and spatial distribution of dust from the integrated spectral properties of galaxies

[Abridged] We present a new approach to investigate the content and spatial distribution of dust in structurally unresolved star-forming galaxies from the observed dependence of integrated spectral properties on galaxy inclination. We develop an innovative combination of generic models of radiative transfer (RT) in dusty media with a prescription for the spectral evolution of galaxies, via the association of different geometric components of galaxies with stars in different age ranges. We show that a wide range of RT models all predict a quasi-universal relation between slope of the attenuation curve at any wavelength and V-band attenuation optical depth in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM), at all galaxy inclinations. This relation predicts steeper (shallower) dust attenuation curves than both the Calzetti and MW curves at small (large) attenuation optical depths, which implies that geometry and orientation effects have a stronger influence on the shape of the attenuation curve than changes in the optical properties of dust grains. We use our combined RT and spectral evolution model to interpret the observed dependence of the Hα/Hβ ratio and ugrizYJH attenuation curve on inclination in a sample of ~23 000 nearby star-forming galaxies. From a Bayesian MCMC fit, we measure the central face-on B-band optical depth of this sample to be tau_B\perp~1.8\pm0.2. We also quantify the enhanced optical depth towards newly formed stars in their birth clouds, finding this to be significantly larger in galaxies with bulges than in disc-dominated galaxies, while tau_B\perp is roughly similar in both cases. Finally, we show that neglecting the effect of geometry and orientation on attenuation can severely bias the interpretation of galaxy spectral energy distributions, as the impact on broadband colours can reach up to 0.3-0.4 mag at optical wavelengths and 0.1 mag at near-infrared ones.

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