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M. G. Jones

Publications and source records attributed to M. G. Jones.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

The size of the HI disk across different environments: isolated, compact groups, clusters, and pairs

The 21 cm line of atomic hydrogen (HI) is a sensitive tracer of the outer disk of galaxies, where environmental signatures are most apparent. The relative extent of HI disks compared to optical disks ($D_{\rm HI}$ vs $D_{25}$) is thought to provide a quantitative measure of such imprint, yet systematic comparisons between extreme environments remain scarce. We quantify the relative extent of HI disks in Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs) and in the Analysis of the interstellar Medium in Isolated GAlaxies (AMIGA) sample, using AMIGA as a control sample that captures secular evolution with minimal external influence. We calculate HI diameters by directly fitting an ellipse to the $1\,M_{\odot}\,{\rm pc}^{-2}$ iso-density contour. Because $D_{\rm HI}$ and $D_{25}$ are nonlinearly related, we avoid the traditional $D_{\rm HI}/D_{25}$ ratio, which carries a size-dependent bias, and instead quantify truncation as the residual from the isolated-galaxy $D_{\rm HI}$-$D_{25}$ baseline, which we establish for AMIGA via Bayesian analysis. The full analysis is provided as a reproducible Python package and Snakemake workflow. HCG galaxies lie systematically below the isolated-galaxy baseline in the $D_{\rm HI}$-$D_{25}$ plane. When members with HI nondetections are included as upper limits, HCGs have HI disks at least ~71% smaller than expected for isolated galaxies of the same optical diameter. The truncation increases monotonically along the HCG evolutionary sequence, from Phase 1 to Phase 3. A comparison with literature samples places HCGs at the most-truncated end, statistically indistinguishable from the Virgo cluster sample (VIVA). Compared to AMIGA, HI disks are typically smaller relative to the optical disk in loose groups, compact groups, and cluster infall/field environments, and are most strongly truncated in HCGs and in the Virgo cluster sample.

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MeerKAT view of Hickson Compact Groups: II. HI deficiency in the core and surrounding regions

Hickson compact groups (HCGs) offer an ideal environment for investigating galaxy transformation as a result of interactions. It has been established that the evolutionary sequence of HCGs is marked by an intermediate stage characterised by a substantial amount of HI in their intragroup medium (IGrM) in the form of tidal tails and bridges (Phase 2), rapidly followed by a final stage where no IGrM gas is found and where their member galaxies are highly HI-deficient (Phase 3). Despite numerous single-dish and interferometric HI studies on the HCGs, a clear HI picture of the groups within their large-scale environment still remains to be uncovered. Taking advantage of the MeerKAT's high column density sensitivity and large field-of-view, we aim to investigate the rapid transformation of HCGs from the intermediate to late phases, and establish a picture of their gas content variations in the context of their large-scale environments. We performed MeerKAT observations of six HCGs selected to represent the intermediate and late phases of the proposed evolutionary sequence. Combining the HI observations with data from recent wide-field optical surveys, we evaluated the HI deficiencies of galaxies in a ~30' radius of the HCGs. We find that galaxies surrounding both phases exhibit similar distributions in their gas content. Similarly, galaxies making up the cores of Phase 2 HCGs are comparable to their neighbours in terms of HI deficiencies. However, Phase 3 groups are over an order of magnitude more deficient than their surroundings, supporting previous findings that late-phase HCG galaxies are more evolved than their large-scale environments.

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MeerKAT view of Hickson Compact Groups:I. Data description and release

Context: Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs) are dense gravitationally-bound collections of 4-10 galaxies ideal for studying gas and star formation quenching processes. Aims: We aim to understand the transition of HCGs from possessing complex HI tidal structures (so-called phase 2 groups) to a phase where galaxies have lost most or all their HI (phase 3). We also seek to detect diffuse H i gas that was previously missed by the Very Large Array (VLA). Methods: We observed three phase 2 and three phase 3 HCGs with MeerKAT and reduced the data using the Containerized Automated Radio Astronomy Calibration (CARACal) pipeline. We produced data cubes, moment maps, integrated spectra, and compared our findings with previous VLA and Green Bank Telescope (GBT) observations. Results: Compared with previous VLA observations, MeerKAT reveals much more extended tidal features in phase 2 and some new high surface brightness features in phase 3 groups. However, no diffuse HI component was found in phase 3 groups. We also detected many surrounding galaxies for both phase 2 and phase 3 groups, most of which are normal disk galaxies. Conclusions: The difference between phase 2 and phase 3 groups is still substantial, supporting previous findings that the transition between the two phases must be abrupt.

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Three Quenched, Faint Dwarf Galaxies in the Direction of NGC 300: New Probes of Reionization and Internal Feedback

We report the discovery of three faint and ultra-faint dwarf galaxies -- Sculptor A, Sculptor B and Sculptor C -- in the direction of NGC 300 (D=2.0 Mpc), a Large Magellanic Cloud-mass galaxy. Deep ground-based imaging with Gemini/GMOS resolves all three dwarf galaxies into stars, each displaying a red giant branch indicative of an old, metal-poor stellar population. No young stars or HI gas are apparent, and the lack of a GALEX UV detection suggests that all three systems are quenched. Sculptor C (D=2.04$^{+0.10}_{-0.13}$ Mpc; $M_V$=$-$9.1$\pm$0.1 mag or $L_V$=(3.7$^{+0.4}_{-0.3}$)$\times$10$^5$ $L_{\odot}$) is consistent with being a satellite of NGC 300. Sculptor A (D=1.35$^{+0.22}_{-0.08}$ Mpc; $M_V$=$-$6.9$\pm$0.3 mag or $L_V$=(5$^{+1}_{-1}$)$\times$10$^4$ $L_{\odot}$) is likely in the foreground of NGC 300 and at the extreme edge of the Local Group, analogous to the recently discovered ultra-faint Tucana B in terms of its physical properties and environment. Sculptor B (D=2.48$^{+0.21}_{-0.24}$ Mpc; $M_V$=$-$8.1$\pm$0.3 mag or $L_V$=(1.5$^{+0.5}_{-0.4}$)$\times$10$^5$ $L_{\odot}$) is likely in the background, but future distance measurements are necessary to solidify this statement. It is also of interest due to its quiescent state and low stellar mass. Both Sculptor A and B are $\gtrsim$2-4 $r_{vir}$ from NGC 300 itself. The discovery of three dwarf galaxies in isolated or low-density environments offers an opportunity to study the varying effects of ram pressure stripping, reionization and internal feedback in influencing the star formation history of the faintest stellar systems.

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WALLABY Pilot Survey: Gas-Rich Galaxy Scaling Relations from Marginally-Resolved Kinematic Models

We present the first set of galaxy scaling relations derived from kinematic models of the Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY (WALLABY) pilot phase observations. Combining the results of the first and second pilot data releases, there are 236 available kinematic models. We develop a framework for robustly measuring HI disk structural properties from these kinematic models; applicable to the full WALLABY survey. Utilizing this framework, we obtained the HI size, a measure of the rotational velocity, and angular momentum for 148 galaxies. These comprise the largest sample of galaxy properties from an untargetted, uniformly observed and modelled HI survey to date. We study the neutral atomic Hydrogen (HI) size-mass, size-velocity, mass-velocity, and angular momentum-mass scaling relations. We calculate the slope, intercept, and scatter for these scaling relations and find that they are similar to those obtained from other HI surveys. We also obtain stellar masses for 92 of the 148 robustly measured galaxies using multiband photometry through the Dark Energy Sky Instrument Legacy Imaging Survey Data Release-10 images. We use a subset of 61 of these galaxies that have consistent optical and kinematic inclinations to examine the stellar and baryonic Tully Fisher relations, the gas fraction-disk stability and gas fraction-baryonic mass relations. These measurements and relations demonstrate the unprecedented resource that WALLABY will represent for resolved galaxy scaling relations in HI.

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The AMIGA sample of isolated galaxies -- Effects of Environment on Angular momentum

We investigate the relationship between the baryonic angular momentum and mass for a sample of 36 isolated disc galaxies with resolved HI kinematics and infrared WISE photometry drawn from -- and representative in terms of morphologies, stellar masses and HI-to-star fraction of -- the carefully-constructed AMIGA sample of isolated galaxies. Similarly to previous studies performed on non-isolated galaxies, we find that the relation is well described by a power law $j_{bar} \propto M_{bar}^α$. We also find a slope of $α= 0.54 \pm 0.08$ for the AMIGA galaxies, in line with previous studies in the literature; however, we find that the specific angular momenta of the AMIGA galaxies are on average higher than those of non-isolated galaxies in the literature. This is consistent with theories stipulating that environmental processes involving galaxy-galaxy interaction are able to impact the angular momentum content of galaxies. However, no correlation was found between the angular momentum and the degree of isolation, suggesting that there may exist a threshold local number density beyond which the effects of the environment on the angular momentum become important.

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SKA Science Data Challenge 2: analysis and results

The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) will explore the radio sky to new depths in order to conduct transformational science. SKAO data products made available to astronomers will be correspondingly large and complex, requiring the application of advanced analysis techniques to extract key science findings. To this end, SKAO is conducting a series of Science Data Challenges, each designed to familiarise the scientific community with SKAO data and to drive the development of new analysis techniques. We present the results from Science Data Challenge 2 (SDC2), which invited participants to find and characterise 233245 neutral hydrogen (Hi) sources in a simulated data product representing a 2000~h SKA MID spectral line observation from redshifts 0.25 to 0.5. Through the generous support of eight international supercomputing facilities, participants were able to undertake the Challenge using dedicated computational resources. Alongside the main challenge, `reproducibility awards' were made in recognition of those pipelines which demonstrated Open Science best practice. The Challenge saw over 100 participants develop a range of new and existing techniques, with results that highlight the strengths of multidisciplinary and collaborative effort. The winning strategy -- which combined predictions from two independent machine learning techniques to yield a 20 percent improvement in overall performance -- underscores one of the main Challenge outcomes: that of method complementarity. It is likely that the combination of methods in a so-called ensemble approach will be key to exploiting very large astronomical datasets.

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Disturbed, diffuse, or just missing? A global study of the HI content of Hickson Compact Groups

Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs) are dense configurations of 4 to 10 galaxies, whose HI (neutral gas) morphology appears to follow an evolutionary sequence of three phases, with gas initially confined to galaxies, then significant amounts spread throughout the intra-group medium, and finally with almost no gas remaining in the galaxies themselves. The HI deficiency of HCGs is expected to increase as the HI morphological phase progresses along this sequence, potentially making it a useful proxy for evolutionary phase. We test this hypothesis for the first time with a large sample of 38 HCGs with VLA HI observations that are uniformly reduced and analysed with a purpose-built pipeline. However, we find little evidence that HI deficiency can be used as a proxy for the evolutionary phase of a HCG in either of the first two phases, with the distribution of HI deficiency being consistent in both, although it does greatly increase in the third phase. This appears to be the result to three factors: a) there is already a broad range of HI deficiencies in Phase 1 HCGs, possibly due to their differing locations relative to large scale structures; b) the timescale for major interactions and morphological changes is, in general, considerably shorter than the timescale for the destruction or consumption of HI gas; and c) some groups have their HI content rejuvenated by the late addition of a new gas-rich member (for which we added a new sub-phase, 3c, to the established evolutionary sequence). Finally, across all HCGs studied, we identify only a few cases where there is strong evidence for the existence of a previously proposed diffuse HI component in the intra-group medium, which might be detectable with improved observations. This work was completed with considerable attention paid to scientific reproducibility, and all reduction and analysis has been made public via Github and Zenodo. (Abridged)

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Tucana B: A Potentially Isolated and Quenched Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy at D$\approx$1.4 Mpc

We report the discovery of Tucana B, an isolated ultra-faint dwarf galaxy at a distance of D=1.4 Mpc. Tucana B was found during a search for ultra-faint satellite companions to the known dwarfs in the outskirts of the Local Group, although its sky position and distance indicate the nearest galaxy to be $\sim$500 kpc distant. Deep ground-based imaging resolves Tucana B into stars, and it displays a sparse red giant branch consistent with an old, metal poor stellar population analogous to that seen in the ultra-faint dwarf galaxies of the Milky Way, albeit at fainter apparent magnitudes. Tucana B has a half-light radius of 80$\pm$40 pc, and an absolute magnitude of $M_V$=$-$6.9$^{+0.5}_{-0.6}$ mag ($L_V$=$(5^{+4}_{-2})\times$10$^4$ $L_{\odot}$), which is again comparable to the Milky Way's ultra-faint satellites. There is no evidence for a population of young stars, either in the optical color magnitude diagram or in GALEX archival ultraviolet imaging, with the GALEX data indicating $\log (\mathrm{SFR_{NUV}/M_\odot \, yr^{-1}}) < -5.4$ for star formation on $\lesssim$100 Myr time scales. Given its isolation and physical properties, Tucana B may be a definitive example of an ultra-faint dwarf that has been quenched by reionization, providing strong confirmation of a key driver of galaxy formation and evolution at the lowest mass scales. It also signals a new era of ultra-faint dwarf galaxy discovery at the extreme edges of the Local Group.

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Young, blue, and isolated stellar systems in the Virgo Cluster. I. 2-D Optical spectroscopy

We use panoramic optical spectroscopy obtained with MUSE@VLT to investigate the nature of five candidate extremely isolated low-mass star forming regions (Blue Candidates, BCs hereafter) toward the Virgo cluster of galaxies. Four of the five (BC1, BC3, BC4, BC5) are found to host several HII regions and to have radial velocities fully compatible with being part of the Virgo cluster. All the confirmed candidates have mean metallicity significantly in excess of that expected from their stellar mass, indicating that they originated from gas stripped from larger galaxies. In summary, these four candidates share the properties of the prototype system SECCO 1, suggesting the possible emergence of a new class of stellar systems, intimately linked to the complex duty cycle of gas within clusters of galaxies. A thorough discussion on the nature and evolution of these objects is presented in a companion paper, where the results obtained here from MUSE data are complemented with Hubble Space Telescope (optical) and Very Large Array (HI) observations.

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WALLABY -- An SKA Pathfinder HI Survey

The Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY (WALLABY) is a next-generation survey of neutral hydrogen (HI) in the Local Universe. It uses the widefield, high-resolution capability of the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), a radio interferometer consisting of 36 x 12-m dishes equipped with Phased-Array Feeds (PAFs), located in an extremely radio-quiet zone in Western Australia. WALLABY aims to survey three-quarters of the sky (-90 degr < Dec < +30 degr) to a redshift of z < 0.26, and generate spectral line image cubes at ~30 arcsec resolution and ~1.6 mJy/beam per 4 km/s channel sensitivity. ASKAP's instantaneous field of view at 1.4 GHz, delivered by the PAF's 36 beams, is about 30 sq deg. At an integrated signal-to-noise ratio of five, WALLABY is expected to detect over half a million galaxies with a mean redshift of z ~ 0.05 (~200 Mpc). The scientific goals of WALLABY include: (a) a census of gas-rich galaxies in the vicinity of the Local Group; (b) a study of the HI properties of galaxies, groups and clusters, in particular the influence of the environment on galaxy evolution; and (c) the refinement of cosmological parameters using the spatial and redshift distribution of low-bias gas-rich galaxies. For context we provide an overview of previous large-scale HI surveys. Combined with existing and new multi-wavelength sky surveys, WALLABY will enable an exciting new generation of panchromatic studies of the Local Universe. - First results from the WALLABY pilot survey are revealed, with initial data products publicly available in the CSIRO ASKAP Science Data Archive (CASDA).

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Morphology and surface photometry of a sample of isolated early-type galaxies from deep imaging

Isolated early-type galaxies (iETGs) are evolving in unusually poor environments for this morphological family, which is typical of cluster inhabitants. We investigate the mechanisms driving the evolution of these galaxies. Several studies indicate that interactions, accretions, and merging episodes leave their signature on the galaxy structure, from the nucleus down to the faint outskirts. We focus on revealing such signatures, if any, in a sample of iETGs, and we quantitatively revise their galaxy classification. We observed 20 (out of 104) iETGs, selected from the AMIGA catalog, with the 4KCCD camera at the VATT in the SDSS g and r bands. These are the deepest observations of a sample of iETGs so far. The analysis was performed using the AIDA package, providing PSF-corrected 2D surface photometry up to the galaxy outskirts. The package provides a model of the 2D galaxy light distribution, which after model subtraction enhances the fine and peculiar structures in the residual image of the galaxies. Our re-classification suggests that the sample is composed of bona fide ETGs spanning from ellipticals to late-S0s galaxies. Most of the surface brightness profiles are best fitted with a bulge plus disc model, suggesting the presence of an underlying disc structure. The residuals obtained after the model subtraction show the nearly ubiquitous presence of fine structures, such as shells, stellar fans, rings, and tails. Shell systems are revealed in about 60% of these galaxies. Because interaction, accretion, and merging events are widely interpreted as the origin of the fans, ripples, shells and tails in galaxies, we suggest that most of these iETGs have experienced such events. Because they are isolated (after 2-3 Gyr), these galaxies are the cleanest environment in which to study phenomena connected with events like these.

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Unveiling the environment and faint features of the isolated galaxy CIG 96 with deep optical and HI observations

Asymmetries in HI in galaxies are often caused by the interaction with close companions, making isolated galaxies an ideal framework to study secular evolution. The AMIGA project has demonstrated that isolated galaxies show the lowest level of asymmetry in their HI integrated profiles, yet some present significant asymmetries. CIG 96 (NGC 864) is a representative case reaching a 16% level. Our aim is to investigate the HI asymmetries of this spiral galaxy and what processes have triggered the star-forming regions observed in the XUV pseudoring. We performed deep optical observations at CAHA 1.23m, 2.2m and VST telescopes. We reach surface brightness (SB) limits of mu_2.2m = 27.5 mag arcsec-2 (Cous R) and mu_VST = 28.7mag arcsec-2 (r) that show the XUV pseudoring of the galaxy in detail. Additionally, a wavelet filtering of the HI data cube from our deep observations with E/VLA telescope allowed us to reach a column density of N_HI = 8.9x10^18 cm -2 (5sigma) (28"x28" beam), lower than in any isolated galaxy. We confirm that the HI extends farther than 4xr_25 in all directions. Furthermore, we detect for the first time two gaseous structures (10^6 Msol) in the outskirts. The g-r colour index image from 1.23m shows extremely blue colours in certain regions of the pseudoring where N_HI>8.5x10^20 cm-2 , whereas the rest show red colours. Galactic cirrus contaminate the field, setting an unavoidable detection limit at 28.5mag arcsec-2 (r). We detect no stellar link within 1degx1deg or gaseous link within 40'x40' between CIG 96 and any companion. The isolation criteria rule out interactions with other similar-sized galaxies for at least 2.7Gyr. Using existing stellar evolution models, the age of the pseudoring is estimated at 1Gyr or older. Undetected previously accreted companions and cold gas accretion remain as the main hypothesis to explain the optical pseudoring and HI features of CIG 96.

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