arXiv subjects

Roland Bacon

Publications and source records attributed to Roland Bacon.

117 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2007

Spiral Galaxies in the SAURON Survey

We discuss some recent integral field spectroscopy using the SAURON instrument of a sample consisting of 24 early-type spirals, part of the SAURON Survey, and 18 late-type spirals. Using 2-dimensional maps of their stellar radial velocity, velocity dispersion, and absorption line strength, it is now much easier to understand the nature of nearby galactic bulges. We discuss a few highlights of this work, and point out some new ideas about the formation of galactic bulges.

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arXiv2007

The SAURON project - XI. Stellar Populations from Absorption Line Strength Maps of 24 Early-Type Spirals

We present absorption line strength maps of a sample of 24 representative early-type spiral galaxies, mostly of type Sa, obtained as part of the SAURON survey of nearby galaxies using our custom-built integral-field spectrograph. Using high-quality spectra, spatially binned to a constant signal-to-noise, we measure several key age, metallicity and abundance ratio sensitive indices from the Lick/IDS system over a contiguous two-dimensional field including bulge and inner disc. We present maps of H beta, Fe 5015 and Mg b, for each galaxy The absorption line maps show that many galaxies contain some younger populations (<= 1 Gyr), distributed in small or large inner discs, or in circumnuclear star forming rings. In many cases these young stars are formed in circumnuclear mini-starbursts, which are dominating the light in the centres of some of the early-type spirals. These mini-starburst cause a considerable scatter in index-index diagrams such as Mg b- H beta and Mg b -Fe 5015, more than is measured for early-type galaxies. We find that the central regions of Sa galaxies display a wide range in ages, even within the galaxies. 50% of the sample show velocity dispersion drops in their centres. All of the galaxies of our sample lie on or below the Mg b- $σ$ relation for elliptical galaxies in the Coma cluster, and above the H beta absorption line - $σ$ relation for elliptical galaxies. If those relations are considered to be relations for the oldest local galaxies we see that our sample of spirals has a considerable scatter in age, with the largest scatter at the lowest $σ$. This is in disagreement with highly inclined samples, in which generally only old stellar populations are found in the central regions. All this can be understood if ... (see paper for rest of abstract)

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arXiv2007

Absorption line-strengths of 18 late-type spiral galaxies observed with SAURON

We present absorption line-strength maps for a sample of 18 Sb-Sd galaxies observed using the integral-field spectrograph SAURON. The SAURON spectral range allows the measurement of the Lick/IDS indices Hbeta, Fe5015 and Mgb, which can be used to estimate the stellar population parameters. We present here the two-dimensional line-strength maps for each galaxy. From the maps, we learn that late-type spiral galaxies tend to have high Hbeta and low Fe5015 and Mgb values, and that the Hbeta index has often a positive gradient over the field, while the metal indices peak in the central region. We investigate the relations between the central line-strength indices and their correlations with morphological type and central velocity dispersion, and compare the observed behaviour with that for ellipticals, lenticulars and early-type spirals from the SAURON survey. We find that our galaxies lie below the Mg - sigma relation determined for elliptical galaxies and that the indices show a clear trend with morphological type. From the line-strength maps we calculate age, metallicity and abundance ratio maps and discuss the results from a one-SSP approach and from a two-SSP approach. Late-type galaxies are generally younger and more metal poor than ellipticals and have abundance ratios closer to solar values. We also explore a continuous star formation scenario, and try to recover the star formation history using the evolutionary models of Bruzual & Charlot (2003), assuming constant or exponentially declining star formation rate (SFR). We find a correlation between the e-folding time-scale tau of the starburst and the central velocity dispersion: more massive galaxies tend to have shorter tau, suggesting that the star formation happened long ago and has now basically ended, while for smaller objects with larger values of tau it is still active.

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arXiv2007

The Nature of Galactic Bulges from SAURON Absorption Line Strength Maps

We discuss SAURON absorption line strength maps of a sample of 24 early-type spirals, mostly Sa. From the Lick indices H$β$, Mg b and Fe 5015 we derive SSP-ages and metallicities. By comparing the scaling relations of Mg b and H beta and central velocity dispersion with the same relation for the edge-on sample of Falcon-Barroso et al. (2002) we derive a picture in which the central regions of Sa galaxies contain at least 2 components: one (or more) thin, disc-like component, often containing recent star formation, and another, elliptical-like component, consisting of old stars and rotating more slowly, dominating the light above the plane. If one defines a bulge to be the component responsible for the light in excess of the outer exponential disc, then many Sa-bulges are dominated by a thin, disc-like component containing recent star formation.

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arXiv2004

The abundance of Lyman-(α) emitters in hierarchical models

We present predictions for the abundance of Ly-$α$ emitters in hierarchical structure formation models. We use the {\tt GALFORM} semi-analytical model to explore the impact on the predicted counts of varying assumptions about the escape fraction of Ly-$α$ photons, the redshift at which the universe reionised and the cosmological density parameter. A model with a fixed escape fraction gives a remarkably good match to the observed counts over a wide redshift interval. We present predictions for the expected counts in a typical observation with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer instrument proposed for the Very Large Telescope.

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arXiv2004

Long-Lived Triaxiality in the Dynamically Old Elliptical Galaxy NGC 4365: A Limit on Chaos and Black Hole Mass

Supermassive black holes in the centres of giant elliptical galaxies are thought to induce chaos and eliminate triaxiality in their hosts. We address whether this process operates in real systems, by modeling the stellar kinematics of the old elliptical NGC 4365. This galaxy has a mean stellar population age > 12 Gyr and is known for its kinematically decoupled core and skew rotation at larger radii. We fit the two-dimensional mean velocity field obtained by the SAURON integral-field spectrograph, and the isophotal ellipticity and position-angle profiles, using the velocity field fitting approach. We find NGC 4365 to be strongly triaxial (triaxiality parameter T approximately 0.45) and somewhat flatter than it appears. Axisymmetry or near axisymmetry (T < 0.1) is ruled out at > 95% confidence. In the most probable orientation the long axis points roughly toward the observer, extending to the southwest in projection. Strong triaxiality has persisted for hundreds of dynamical times, ruling out black holes above 3 x 10^9 solar masses. The M-sigma relation predicts 4 x 10^8 solar masses, which would not preclude long-lived triaxiality and is consistent with the observations. NGC 4365 lends support to a picture in which supermassive black holes, while omnipresent in luminous giant elliptical galaxies, are not massive enough to alter their global structure through chaos.

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arXiv2002

Two-dimensional kinematics and stellar populations of early-type galaxies: First results from the SAURON survey

We present the SAURON project, which is aimed at studying the morphology, two-dimensional kinematics and stellar populations of a representative sample of elliptical galaxies and spiral bulges. SAURON, a dedicated integral-field spectrograph that is optimized for wide-field observations and has high throughput, was built in Lyon and is now operated at the WHT 4.2m telescope. At present, we have observed approximately two thirds of the seventy-two sample galaxies with SAURON. A comparison with published long-slit measurements demonstrates that the SAURON-data is of equal or better quality, and provides full two-dimensional coverage. The velocity and velocity dispersion fields exhibit a large variety of morphologies: from simple rotating systems to cylindrical, disky and triaxial velocity fields, bars and decoupled cores. Most of these kinematical signatures do not have counterparts in the light distribution. While some galaxies are consistent with axisymmetry, most are more complex systems than assumed previously. This suggests that the kinematical properties of nearby E/S0 galaxies do not agree with the often assumed simplistic two-family model, in which the giant non-rotating triaxial ellipticals are opposed to the fast-rotating axisymmetric faint ellipticals and S0s.

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arXiv2002

Probing the stellar populations of early-type galaxies: the SAURON survey

The SAURON project will deliver two-dimensional spectroscopic data of a sample of nearby early-type galaxies with unprecedented quality. In this paper, we focus on the mapping of their stellar populations using the SAURON data, and present some preliminary results on a few prototypical cases.

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arXiv1998

Dynamical models of NGC 3115

We present new dynamical models of the S0 galaxy N3115, making use of the available published photometry and kinematics as well as of two-dimensional TIGER spectrography. We first examined the kinematics in the central 40 arcsec in the light of two integral f(E,J) models. Jeans equations were used to constrain the mass to light ratio, and the central dark mass whose existence was suggested by previous studies. The even part of the distribution function was then retrieved via the Hunter & Qian formalism. We thus confirmed that the velocity and dispersion profiles in the central region could be well fit with a two-integral model, given the presence of a central dark mass of ~10^9 Msun. However, no two integral model could fit the h_3 profile around a radius of 25 arcsec where the outer disc dominates the surface brightness distribution. Three integral analytical models were therefore built using a Quadratic Programming technique. These models showed that three integral components do indeed provide a reasonable fit to the kinematics, including the higher Gauss-Hermite moments. Again, models without a central dark mass failed to reproduce the observed kinematics in the central arcseconds. This clearly supports the presence of a nuclear black hole of at least 6.5 10^8 Msun in the centre of NGC 3115. These models were finally used to estimate the importance of the dark matter in the outer part of NGC 3115, suggested by the flat stellar rotation curve observed by Capaccioli et al. (1993).

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