arXiv subjects

Sadanori Okamura

Publications and source records attributed to Sadanori Okamura.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

Discovery of a Giant Lya Emitter Near the Reionization Epoch

We report the discovery of a giant Lya emitter (LAE) with a Spitzer/IRAC counterpart near the reionization epoch at z=6.595. The giant LAE is found from the extensive 1 deg^2 Subaru narrow-band survey for z=6.6 LAEs in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey (SXDS) field, and subsequently identified by deep spectroscopy of Keck/DEIMOS and Magellan/IMACS. Among our 207 LAE candidates, this LAE is not only the brightest narrow-band object with L(Lya) = 3.9+/-0.2 x 10^43 erg/s in our survey volume of 10^6 Mpc^3, but also a spatially extended Lya nebula with the largest isophotal area whose major axis is at least ~3''. This object is more likely to be a large Lya nebula with a size of >~17 kpc than to be a strongly-lensed galaxy by a foreground object. Our Keck spectrum with medium-high spectral and spatial resolutions suggests that the velocity width is v(FWHM)=251+/-21 km/s, and that the line-center velocity changes by ~60 km/s in a 10-kpc range. The stellar mass and star-formation rate are estimated to be 0.9-5.0 x 10^10 Mo and >34 Mo/yr, respectively, from the combination of deep optical to infrared images of Subaru, UKIDSS-Ultra Deep Survey, and Spitzer/IRAC. Although the nature of this object is not yet clearly understood, this could be an important object for studying cooling clouds accreting onto a massive halo, or forming-massive galaxies with significant outflows contributing to cosmic reionization and metal enrichment of inter-galactic medium.

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arXiv2008

Science with UT's Dichroic-Mirror Camera (DMC), 15-band simultaneous imager

We introduce the Dichroic-Mirror Camera (DMC), an instrument developed at the University of Tokyo which is capable of performing simultaneous imaging in fifteen bands. The main feature of the DMC is the dichroic mirrors, which split incoming light into red and blue components. Combination of dichroic mirrors split light from the telescope focus into fifteen intermediate-width bands across 390 -- 950 nm. The fifteen bands of DMC provide measurements of the object's spectral energy distribution (SED) at fifteen wavelength points. During May -- June 2007 and March 2008, observing run of the DMC was carried out at Higashi-Hiroshima Observatory, Japan. We observed several objects i.e. planets, asteroids, standard stars & star clusters, planetary nebulae, galaxies, and supernovae. We describe several early scientific results from the DMC.

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arXiv2008

Star Formation Rates and Metallicities of K-selected Star Forming Galaxies at z~2

We present spectroscopy of 15 star-forming BzK galaxies (sBzKs) with K(AB)<23 in the Subaru Deep Field, for which Halpha and some other emission lines are detected in 0.9 to 2.3 micron spectra with a resolution of R=500. Using Halpha luminosities, we obtain star formation rates (SFRs), and then specific SFRs (SSFRs) dividing SFRs by stellar masses, which are derived from SED fitting to BVRi'z'K photometry. It is found that sBzKs with higher stellar masses have larger SFRs. A negative correlation is seen between stellar mass and SSFR, which is consistent with the previous results for z~2 galaxies. This implies that a larger growth of stellar mass occurs in less massive galaxies. In addition, gas-phase oxygen abundances, 12+log(O/H), are derived from the ratio of NII(lambda 6584) to Halpha using the N2 index method. We have found a correlation between stellar mass and oxygen abundance in the sense that more massive sBzKs tend to be more metal rich, which is qualitatively consistent with the relation for UV-selected z~2 galaxies. However, the metallicity of the sBzKs is ~0.2 dex higher than that of UV-selected galaxies with similar stellar masses, which is significant considering the small uncertainties. The sBzKs in our sample have redder R-K colors than the UV-selected galaxies. This galaxy color-dependence in the oxygen abundance may be caused by older or dustier galaxies having higher metallicities at z~2.

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arXiv2008

Proper motions with Subaru I. Methods and a first sample in the Subaru Deep Field

We search for stars with proper motions in a set of twenty deep Subaru images, covering about 0.28 square degrees to a depth of i ~ 25, taken over a span of six years. In this paper, we describe in detail our reduction and techniques to identify moving objects. We present a first sample of 99 stars with motions of high significance, and discuss briefly the populations from which they are likely drawn. Based on photometry and motions alone, we expect that 9 of the candidates may be white dwarfs. We also find a group of stars which may be extremely metal-poor subdwarfs in the halo.

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arXiv2008

Mapping dusty star formation in and around a cluster at z=0.81 by wide-field imaging with AKARI

We present environmental dependence of dusty star forming activity in and around the cluster RXJ1716.4+6708 at z=0.81 based on wide-field and multi-wavelength observations with Suprime-Cam on the Subaru telescope and IRC onboard the AKARI satellite. Our optical data shows that the optical colour distribution of galaxies starts to dramatically change from blue to red at the medium-density environment such as cluster outskirts, groups and filaments. By combining with infrared data, we find that 15 micron galaxies tend to have optical colours between the red sequence and the blue cloud with a tail into the red sequence. The spatial distribution of the 15 micron galaxies over ~200 arcmin^2 around the cluster reveals that few 15 micron galaxies are detected in the cluster central region. This is probably due to the low star forming activity in the cluster core. However, interestingly, the fraction of 15 micron galaxies in the medium-density environments is as high as in the low-density field, despite the fact that the optical colours start to change in the medium-density environments. Furthermore, we find that 15 micron galaxies which have optically red colours (candidates for dusty red galaxies) and galaxies with high specific star formation rates are also concentrated in the medium-density environment. These results imply that the star forming activity in galaxies in groups and filaments is enhanced due to some environmental effects specific to the medium-density environment, and such a phenomenon is probably directly connected to the truncation of star forming activity in galaxies seen as the dramatic change in optical colours in such environments.

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arXiv2008

The Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey (SXDS). IV. Evolution of Lya Emitters from z=3.1 to 5.7 in the 1 deg^2 Field: Luminosity Functions and AGN

We present luminosity functions (LFs) and various properties of Lya emitters (LAEs) at z=3.1, 3.7, and 5.7, in a 1 deg^2 sky of the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey (SXDS) Field. We obtain a photometric sample of 858 LAE candidates based on deep Subaru/Suprime-Cam imaging data, and a spectroscopic sample of 84 confirmed LAEs from Subaru/FOCAS and VLT/VIMOS spectroscopy in a survey volume of ~10^6 Mpc^3 with a limiting Lya luminosity of ~3x10^42 erg/s. We derive the LFs of Lya and UV-continuum (~1500 Å) for each redshift, taking into account the statistical error and the field-to-field variation. We find that the apparent Lya LF shows no significant evolution between z=3.1 and 5.7 within factors of 1.8 and 2.7 in L* and phi*, respectively. On the other hand, the UV LF of LAEs increases from z=3.1 to 5.7, indicating that galaxies with Lya emission are more common at earlier epochs. We identify six LAEs with AGN activities from our spectra combined with VLA, Spitzer, and XMM-Newton data. Among the photometrically selected LAEs at z=3.1 and 3.7, only ~1 % show AGN activities, while the brightest LAEs with logL(Lya) >~ 43.4-43.6 erg/s appear to always host AGNs. Our LAEs are bluer in UV-continuum color than dropout galaxies, suggesting lower extinction and/or younger stellar populations. Our stacking analyses provide upper limits to the radio luminosity and the f(HeII)/f(Lya) line fraction, and constrain the hidden star formation (+low-luminosity AGN) and the primordial population in LAEs.

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arXiv2008

Probing the History of Cluster Assembly by Intracluster Planetary Nebulae

We describe the results and the current status of our program to search for intracluster planetary nebulae (ICPNe) in the Virgo and the Coma clusters of galaxies. For the Virgo cluster, ICPNe candidates were detected with narrow band imaging combined with broad band imaging. The use of two narrow band filters for H$α$ and [O III] lines tuned for the cluster redshift enabled us to detect secure ICPNe candidates. Kinematics of the detected ICPNe confirm that the Virgo cluster is in a highly unrelaxed state. In order to detect ICPNe in the Coma cluster, which is more than five times more distant than the Virgo cluster, we devised a multi-slit imaging spectroscopy technique and successfully detected 35 secure ICPNe candidates for the first time in this cluster. We have found a hint that the Coma cluster is currently in the midst of a subcluster merger.

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arXiv2008

The Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey (SXDS) -VII. Clustering Segregation with Ultraviolet and Optical Luminosities of Lyman-Break Galaxies at z~3

We investigate clustering properties of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) at z~3 based on deep multi-waveband imaging data from optical to near-infrared wavelengths in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field. The LBGs are selected by U-V and V-z' colors in one contiguous area of 561 arcmin^2 down to z'=25.5. We study the dependence of the clustering strength on rest-frame UV and optical magnitudes, which can be indicators of star formation rate and stellar mass, respectively. The correlation length is found to be a strong function of both UV and optical magnitudes with brighter galaxies being more clustered than faint ones in both cases. Furthermore, the correlation length is dependent on a combination of UV and optical magnitudes in the sense that galaxies bright in optical magnitude have large correlation lengths irrespective of UV magnitude, while galaxies faint in optical magnitude have correlation lengths decreasing with decreasing UV brightness. These results suggest that galaxies with large stellar masses always belong to massive halos in which they can have various star formation rates, while galaxies with small stellar masses reside in less massive halos only if they have low star formation rates. There appears to be an upper limit to the stellar mass and the star formation rate which is determined by the mass of hosting dark halos.

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arXiv2008

The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey: I - Survey Objectives and Design

We describe the HST ACS Coma cluster Treasury survey, a deep two-passband imaging survey of one of the nearest rich clusters of galaxies, the Coma cluster (Abell 1656). The survey was designed to cover an area of 740 square arcmin in regions of different density of both galaxies and intergalactic medium within the cluster. The ACS failure of January 27th 2007 leaves the survey 28% complete, with 21 ACS pointings (230 square arcmin) complete, and partial data for a further 4 pointings (44 square arcmin). Predicted survey depth for 10 sigma detections for optimal photometry of point sources is g' = 27.6 in the F475W filter, and IC=26.8 mag in F814 (AB magnitudes). Initial simulations with artificially injected point sources show 90% recovered at magnitude limits of g' = 27.55 and IC = 26.65. For extended sources, the predicted 10 sigma limits for a 1 square arcsecond region are g' = 25.8 mag/sq. arcsec and IC = 25.0 mag/sq. arcsec. We highlight several motivating science goals of the survey, including study of the faint end of the cluster galaxy luminosity function, structural parameters of dwarf galaxies, stellar populations and their effect on colors and color gradients, evolution of morphological components in a dense environment, the nature of ultra compact dwarf galaxies, and globular cluster populations of cluster galaxies of a range of luminosities and types. This survey will also provide a local rich cluster benchmark for various well known global scaling relations and explore new relations pertaining to the nuclear properties of galaxies.

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arXiv2007

Dependence of the Build-up of the Colour-Magnitude Relation on Cluster Richness at z ~ 0.8

We present environmental dependence of the build-up of the colour-magnitude relation (CMR) at z ~ 0.8. It is well established that massive early-type galaxies exhibit a tight CMR in clusters up to at least z ~ 1. The faint end of the relation, however, has been much less explored especially at high redshifts primarily due to limited depths of the data. Some recent papers have reported a deficit of the faint red galaxies on the CMR at 0.8 < z < 1, but this has not been well confirmed yet and is still controversial. Using a deep, multi-colour, panoramic imaging data set of the distant cluster RXJ1716.4+6708 at z=0.81, newly taken with the Prime Focus Camera (Suprime-Cam) on the Subaru Telescope, we carry out an analysis of faint red galaxies with a care for incompleteness. We find that there is a sharp decline in the number of red galaxies toward the faint end of the CMR below M*+2. We compare our result with those for other clusters at z ~ 0.8 taken from the literature, which show or do not show the deficit. We suggest that the "deficit" of faint red galaxies is dependent on the richness or mass of the clusters, in the sense that poorer systems show stronger deficits. This indicates that the evolutionary stage of less massive galaxies depends critically on environment.

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arXiv2007

Wide-field Survey around Local Group Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Leo II: Spatial Distribution of Stellar Content

We carried out a wide-field V, I imaging survey of the Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo II using the Subaru Prime Focus Camera on the 8.2-m Subaru Telescope. The survey covered an area of 26.67 x 26.67 arcmin^2, far beyond the tidal radius of Leo II (8.63 arcmin), down to the limiting magnitude of V ~26, which is roughly 1 mag deeper than the turn-off point of the main sequence stars of Leo II. Radial number density profiles of bright and faint red giant branch (RGB) stars were found to change their slopes at around the tidal radius, and extend beyond the tidal radius with shallower slopes. A smoothed surface brightness map of Leo II suggests the existence of a small substructure of globular cluster luminosity beyond the tidal radius. We investigated the properties of the stellar population by means of the color-magnitude diagram. The horizontal branch (HB) morphology index shows a radial gradient in which red HB stars are more concentrated than blue HB stars, which is common to many Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The color distribution of RGB stars around the mean RGB sequence shows a larger dispersion at the center than in the outskirts, indicating a mixture of stellar populations at the center and a more homogeneous population in the outskirts. Based on the age estimation using subgiant branch (SGB) stars, we found that although the major star formation took place ~8 Gyr ago, a considerable stellar population younger than 8 Gyr is found at the center; such a younger population is insignificant in the outskirts.

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arXiv2007

Deep Spectroscopy of Systematically Surveyed Extended Lyman-alpha Sources at z~3-5

Spatially extended Ly-alpha sources that are faint and/or compact in coninuum are candidates for extremely young (~< 10^7 yrs) galaxies at high redshifts. We present medium-resolution (R~2000) spectroscopy of such extended Ly-alpha sources found in our previous study at z~3-5, using VLT/VIMOS. The deep spectroscopy showed that all 18 objects we observed have large equivalent widths (EWs) exceeding 100 A. For about 30% of our sample (five objects), we identified conspicuous asymmetry on the profiles of the Ly-alpha line. They show broad wing emission components on the red side, and sharp cut-off on the blue side of the Ly-alpha line. Such asymmetry is often seen in superwind galaxies known to date, and also consistent with a theoretical prediction of superwind activity. There are eight objects (8/18 ~ 40%) that have large EWs exceeding 200 A, and no clear signature of superwind activities. Such large EWs cannot be explained in terms of photo-ionization by a moderately old (>10^7 yrs) stellar population, even with a top-heavy IMF or an extremely low metallicity. These eight objects clearly show a positive correlation between the Ly-alpha luminosity and the velocity width. This suggests that these eight objects are good candidates for forming-galaxies in a gas-cooling phase.

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arXiv2007

A Catalogue of Morphologically Classified Galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: North Equatorial Region

We present a catalogue of morphologically classified bright galaxies in the north equatorial stripe (230 deg$^2$) derived from the Third Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Morphological classification is performed by visual inspection of images in the $g$ band. The catalogue contains 2253 galaxies complete to a magnitude limit of $r=16$ after Galactic extinction correction, selected from 2658 objects that are judged as extended in the photometric catalogue in the same magnitude limit. 1866 galaxies in our catalogue have spectroscopic information. A brief statistical analysis is presented for the frequency of morphological types and mean colours in the catalogue. A visual inspection of the images reveals that the rate of interacting galaxies in the local Universe is approximately 1.5% in the $r\le16$ sample. A verification is made for the photometric catalogue generated by the SDSS, especially as to its bright end completeness.

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arXiv2007

The Kinematics of Intracluster Planetary Nebulae and the On-Going Subcluster Merger in the Coma Cluster Core

The Coma cluster is the richest and most compact of the nearby clusters, yet there is growing evidence that its formation is still on-going. With a new multi-slit imaging spectroscopy technique pioneered at the 8.2 m Subaru telescope and FOCAS, we have detected and measured the line-of-sight velocities of 37 intracluster planetary nebulae associated with the diffuse stellar population of stars in the Coma cluster core, at 100 Mpc distance. We detect clear velocity substructures within a 6 arcmin diameter field. A substructure is present at ~5000 km/s, probably from in-fall of a galaxy group, while the main intracluster stellar component is centered around ~6500 km/s, ~700 km/s offset from the nearby cD galaxy NGC 4874. The kinematics and morphology of the intracluster stars show that the cluster core is in a highly dynamically evolving state. In combination with galaxy redshift and X-ray data this argues strongly that the cluster is currently in the midst of a subcluster merger, where the NGC 4874 subcluster core may still be self-bound, while the NGC 4889 subcluster core has probably dissolved. The NGC 4889 subcluster is likely to have fallen into Coma from the eastern A2199 filament, in a direction nearly in the plane of the sky, meeting the NGC 4874 subcluster arriving from the west. The two inner subcluster cores are presently beyond their first and second close passage, during which the elongated distribution of diffuse light has been created. We predict the kinematic signature expected in this scenario, and argue that the extended western X-ray arc recently discovered traces the arc shock generated by the collision between the two subcluster gas halos. Any preexisting cooling core region would have been heated by the subcluster collision.

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arXiv2007

Kinematic Substructures in the Coma Cluster Core as traced by Intracluster Planetary Nebulae

The Coma cluster is the richest and most compact of the nearby clusters, yet there is growing evidence that its formation is still on-going. A sensitive probe of this evolution is the dynamics of intracluster stars, which are unbound from galaxies while the cluster forms, according to cosmological simulations. With a new multi-slit imaging spectroscopy technique pioneered at the 8.2 m Subaru telescope and FOCAS, we can now detect and measure the line-of-sight velocities of the intracluster planetary nebulae which are associated with the diffuse stellar population of stars, at 100 Mpc distance. We detect significant velocity substructures within a 6 arcmin diameter field, centred on the Coma X-ray cluster emission. One substructure ispresent at ~5000 km/s, probably from infall of a galaxy group, while the main intracluster stellar component moves at ~ 6500 km/s. Hence the ICPNs associated with the diffuse light at the position of the MSIS field are not bound to the nearby cD galaxy NGC 4874, whose radial velocity is ~ 700 km/s greater.

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arXiv2007

The HI content of star-forming galaxies at z = 0.24

We use observations from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) to measure the atomic hydrogen gas content of star-forming galaxies at z = 0.24 (i.e. a look-backtime of ~3 Gyr). The sample of galaxies studied were selected from Halpha-emitting field galaxies detected in a narrow-band imaging survey with the Subaru Telescope. The Anglo-Australian Telescope was used to obtain precise optical redshifts for these galaxies. We then coadded the HI 21 cm emission signal for all the galaxies within the GMRT spectral line data cube. From the coadded signal of 121 galaxies, we measure an average atomic hydrogen gas mass of (2.26 +- 0.90)*10^9 solar masses. We translate this HI signal into a cosmic density of neutral gas at z = 0.24 of Omega_gas = (0.91 +- 0.42)*10^-3. This is the current highest redshift at which Omega_gas has been constrained from 21 cm emission and our value is consistent with that estimated from damped Lyman-alpha systems around this redshift. We also find that the correlations between the Halpha luminosity and the radio continuum luminosity and between the star formation rate and the HI gas content in star-forming galaxies at z = 0.24 are consistent with the correlations found at z = 0. These two results suggest that the star formation mechanisms in field galaxies ~3 Gyr ago were not substantially different from the present, even though the star formation rate is 3 times higher.

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arXiv2007

Luminosity dependent clustering of star-forming BzK galaxies at redshift 2

We use the BzK color selection proposed by Daddi et al. (2004) to obtain a sample of 1092 faint star-forming galaxies (hereafter sBzKs) from 180 arcmin^2 in the Subaru Deep Field. This sample represents star-forming galaxies at 1.4 < z < 2.5 down to K(AB)=23.2, which roughly corresponds to a stellar-mass limit of ~ 1 x 10^{10} Msun. We measure the angular correlation function (ACF) of these sBzKs to be w(theta) = (0.58 +- 0.13) x theta["]^{-0.8} and translate the amplitude into the correlation length assuming a reasonable redshift distribution. The resulting value, r0 = 3.2^{+0.6}_{-0.7} h^{-1} Mpc, suggests that our sBzKs reside in haloes with a typical mass of 2.8 x 10^{11} Msun. Combining this halo mass estimate with those for brighter samples of Kong et al. (2006), we find that the mass of dark haloes largely increases with K brightness, a measure of the stellar mass. Comparison with other galaxy populations suggests that faint sBzKs (K(AB)<23.2) and Lyman Break Galaxies at z ~ 2 are similar populations hosted by relatively low-mass haloes, while bright sBzKs (K(AB)<21) reside in haloes comparable to or more massive than those of Distant Red Galaxies and Extremely Red Objects. Using the extended Press-Schechter formalism, we predict that present-day descendants of haloes hosting sBzKs span a wide mass range depending on K brightness, from lower than that of the Milky Way up to those of richest clusters.

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arXiv2007

The Remarkable 60 x 2 kpc Optical Filament Associated with a Poststarburst Galaxy in Coma Cluster

In the deep narrow band image of the Coma Cluster taken with Suprime-Cam of the Subaru telescope, we found an extremely long and narrow (~ 60 kpc x 2 kpc) Halpha emitting region associated with a poststarburst galaxy (D100). Follow up spectroscopy shows that the region has the same redshift as D100. The surface brightness of the region is typically 25 mag(AB) arcsec^-2 in Halpha, which corresponds to 0.5--4x10^-17 erg s^-1 cm^-2 arcsec^-2. We set two possible explanations for the origin of the region; gas stripped off from a merged dwarf, or gas stripped off from D100 by ram pressure. Either scenario has difficulty to fully explain all the observed characteristics of the region.

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