arXiv subjects

Stefano Berta

Publications and source records attributed to Stefano Berta.

28 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Galaxy evolution from deep multi-wavelength Infrared surveys: a prelude to Herschel

[abridged] At the end of the Spitzer cryogenic mission and the onset of the Herschel era, we review our current knowledge on galaxy evolution at IR wavelengths. We also develop new tools for the analysis of background fluctuations to constrain source counts in regimes of high confusion. We analyse a large variety of new data on galaxy evolution and high-z source populations from Spitzer surveys, as well as complementary data from sub-mm (BLAST) and millimetric ground-based observations. These data confirm earlier indications about a very rapid increase of galaxy volume emissivity up to z~1. This is the fastest evolution rate observed for galaxies at any wavelengths. The observed Spitzer counts at 24 micron require a combination of fast evolution for the dominant population and a bumpy spectrum with substantial PAH emission at z~1 to 2. Confusion-limited number counts at longer wavelengths confirm these results. All the present data require that the fast observed evolution from z=0 to 1 flattens around redshift 1 and then keeps approximately constant up to z~2.5 at least. The present-day IR data provide clear evidence for the existence of a distinct population of very luminous galaxies becoming dominant at z > 1. Their cosmological evolution, peaking around z~2, shows a faster decay with cosmic time than lower luminosity systems, whose maximal activity is set around z~1, then supporting an earlier phase of formation for the most luminous and massive galaxies. From a comparison of our results on the comoving IR emissivity with recent estimates of the redshift-dependent stellar mass functions of galaxies, we infer that a large fraction (>=50%) of the IR activity at z > 1 should be due to obscured AGN accretion and that concomitant SF in high-z luminous sources should follow a top-heavy IMF.

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arXiv2008

A spectroscopic study of a z=1.6 galaxy overdensity with GMASS

The Galaxy Mass Assembly ultra-deep Spectroscopic Survey samples a part of the CDFS to unprecedented depth. The resulting distribution of 150 z>1.4 redshifts reveals a significant peak at z=1.6, part of a larger overdensity found at this redshift. The 42 spectroscopic members of this structure, called Cl 0332-2742, form an overdensity in redshift of a factor 11+/-3 and have a velocity dispersion of 450 km/s. We derive a total mass for Cl 0332-2742 of ~7x10^14 Msol. The colours of its early-type galaxies are consistent with a theoretical red sequence of galaxies with stars formed at z=3.0. In addition, there are more massive, passive and older, but less star forming galaxies in CL 0332-2742 than in the field. We conclude that this structure is a cluster under assembly at z=1.6.

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arXiv2008

Photometric redshifts in the SWIRE Survey

We present the SWIRE Photometric Redshift Catalogue, 1025119 redshifts of unprecedented reliability and accuracy. Our method is based on fixed galaxy and QSO templates applied to data at 0.36-4.5 mu, and on a set of 4 infrared emission templates fitted to infrared excess data at 3.6-170 mu. The code involves two passes through the data, to try to optimize recognition of AGN dust tori. A few carefully justified priors are used and are the key to supression of outliers. Extinction, A_V, is allowed as a free parameter. We use a set of 5982 spectroscopic redshifts, taken from the literature and from our own spectroscopic surveys, to analyze the performance of our method as a function of the number of photometric bands used in the solution and the reduced chi^2. For 7 photometric bands the rms value of (z_{phot}-z_{spec})/(1+z_{spec}) is 3.5%, and the percentage of catastrophic outliers is ~1%. We discuss the redshift distributions at 3.6 and 24 mu. In individual fields, structure in the redshift distribution corresponds to clusters which can be seen in the spectroscopic redshift distribution. 10% of sources in the SWIRE photometric redshift catalogue have z >2, and 4% have z>3, so this catalogue is a huge resource for high redshift galaxies. A key parameter for understanding the evolutionary status of infrared galaxies is L_{ir}/L_{opt}, which can be interpreted as the specific star-formation rate for starbursts. For dust tori around Type 1 AGN, L_{tor}/L_{opt} is a measure of the torus covering factor and we deduce a mean covering factor of 40%.

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arXiv2007

Deep ATLAS Radio Observations of the ELAIS-S1/Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalctic field

We have conducted sensitive (1 sigma<30 uJy) 1.4 GHz radio observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array of a field largely coincident with infrared observations of the Spitzer Wide-Area Extragalactic Survey. The field is centred on the European Large Area ISO Survey S1 region and has a total area of 3.9 deg. We describe the observations and calibration, source extraction, and cross-matching to infrared sources. Two catalogues are presented; one of the radio components found in the image and one of radio sources with counterparts in the infrared and extracted from the literature. 1366 radio components were grouped into 1276 sources, 1183 of which were matched to infrared sources. We discover 31 radio sources with no infrared counterpart at all, adding to the class of Infrared-Faint Radio Sources.

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arXiv2007

Galaxy Counts at 24 Microns in the SWIRE Fields

This paper presents galaxy source counts at 24 microns in the six Spitzer Wide-field InfraRed Extragalactic (SWIRE) fields. The source counts are compared to counts in other fields, and to model predictions that have been updated since the launch of Spitzer. This analysis confirms a very steep rise in the Euclidean-normalized differential number counts between 2 mJy and 0.3 mJy. Variations in the counts between fields show the effects of sample variance in the flux range 0.5-10 mJy, up to 100% larger than Poisson errors. Nonetheless, a "shoulder" in the normalized counts persists at around 3 mJy. The peak of the normalized counts at 0.3 mJy is higher and narrower than most models predict. In the ELAIS N1 field, the 24 micron data are combined with Spitzer-IRAC data and five-band optical imaging, and these bandmerged data are fit with photometric redshift templates. Above 1 mJy the counts are dominated by galaxies at z less than 0.3. By 300 microJy, about 25% are between z ~ 0.3-0.8, and a significant fraction are at z ~ 1.3-2. At low redshifts the counts are dominated by spirals, and starbursts rise in number density to outnumber the spirals' contribution to the counts below 1 mJy.

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arXiv2006

Optical and Infrared Diagnostics of SDSS galaxies in the SWIRE Survey

We present the rest-frame optical and infrared colours of a complete sample of 1114 z<0.3 galaxies from the Spitzer Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic Legacy Survey (SWIRE) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We discuss the optical and infrared colours of our sample and analyse in detail the contribution of dusty star-forming galaxies and AGN to optically selected red sequence galaxies. We propose that the optical (g-r) colour and infrared log(L_{24}/L_{3.6}) colour of galaxies in our sample are determined primarily by a bulge-to-disk ratio. The (g-r) colour is found to be sensitive to the bulge-to-disk ratio for disk-dominated galaxies, whereas the log(L_{24}/L_{3.6}) colour is more sensitive for bulge-dominated systems. We identify ~18% (195 sources) of our sample as having red optical colours and infrared excess. Typically, the infrared luminosities of these galaxies are found to be at the high end of star-forming galaxies with blue optical colours. Using emission line diagnostic diagrams, 78 are found to have an AGN contribution, and 117 are identified as star-forming systems. The red (g-r) colour of the star-forming galaxies could be explained by extinction. However, their high optical luminosities cannot. We conclude that they have a significant bulge component. The number densities of optically red star-forming galaxies are found to correspond to ~13% of the total number density of our sample. In addition, these systems contribute ~13% of the total optical luminosity density, and 28% of the total infrared luminosity density of our SWIRE/SDSS sample. These objects may reduce the need for "dry-mergers".

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arXiv2005

FORS spectroscopy of galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field South

We present low resolution multi-object spectroscopy of an I-band magnitude limited (I_{AB} ~ 23--23.5) sample of galaxies located in an area centered on the Hubble Deep Field-South (HDFS). The observations were obtained using the Focal Reducer low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) on the ESO Very Large Telescope. Thirty-two primary spectroscopic targets in the HST-WFPC2 HDFS were supplemented with galaxies detected in the Infrared Space Observatory's survey of the HDFS and the ESO Imaging Deep Survey to comprise a sample of 100 galaxies for spectroscopic observations. Based on detections of several emission lines, such as [OII]3727, H_beta and [OIII]5007, or other spectroscopic features, we have measured accurate redshifts for 50 objects in the central HDFS and flanking fields. The redshift range of the current sample of galaxies is 0.6--1.2, with a median redshift of 1.13 (at I ~ 23.5 not corrected for completeness). The sample is dominated by starburst galaxies with only a small fraction of ellipticals (~10%). For the emission line objects, the extinction corrected [OII]3727 line strengths yield estimates of star formation rates in the range 0.5--30 M_solar/yr. We have used the present data to derive the [OII]3727 luminosity function up to redshift of 1.2. When combined with [OII]3727 luminosity densities for the local and high redshift Universe, our results confirm the steep rise in the star formation rate (SFR) to z ~ 1.3.

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arXiv2004

First Insights into the SWIRE Galaxy Populations

We characterize the SWIRE galaxy populations in the SWIRE validation field within the Lockman Hole, based on the 3.6-24$μ$ Spitzer data and deep U,g',r',r' optical imaging within an area ~1/3 sq. deg for ~16,000 Spitzer-SWIRE sources. The entire SWIRE survey will discover over 2.3 million galaxies at 3.6$μ$m and almost 350,000 at 24$μ$m; ~70,000 of these will be 5-band 3.6-24$μ$ detections. The colors cover a broad range, generally well represented by redshifted spectral energy distributions of known galaxy populations, however significant samples of unusually blue objects in the [3.6-4.5]$μ$m color are found, as well as many objects very red in the 3.6-24$μ$m mid-IR. Nine of these are investigated and are interpreted as star-forming systems, starbursts and AGN from z=0.37 to 2.8, with luminosities from L$_{IR}$=10$^{10.3}$ to 10$^{13.7}$ L$_{\odot}$

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arXiv2004

Photometric Estimates of Stellar Masses in High-Redshift Galaxies

We present a new tool for the photometric estimate of stellar masses in distant galaxies. The observed SEDs are fitted by combining single stellar populations, with different SFRs and amounts of dust extinction. This approach gives us the best flexibility when dealing with the widest variety of physical situation for the target galaxies. In particular we tested the code on three classes of sources: dusty ISO-selected starbursts, K-band selected ellipticals/S0s and z=2-3 Lyman-break galaxies. We pay particular attention in evaluating the uncertainties in the stellar mass estimate, due to degeneracies in the physical parameters, different SFHs or metallicities. Based on optical-NIR photometric data, the stellar masses are found to have overall uncertainties of a factor of ~2 for E/S0s, ~2-5 for the starbursts population, and up to 10 for Ly-break galaxies. In any case the latter appear to correspond to a galaxy population significantly less massive than those observed at lower redshifts, possibly indicating substantial stellar build-up at z~1-2 in the field galaxy population. Using simulated deep SIRTF/IRAC observations of starbursts and Lyman-break galaxies, we investigate how an extension of the wavelength dynamic range will decrease the uncertainties in the stellar mass estimate, and find that they will reduce for both classes to factors of 2-3, good enough for statistically reliable determinations of the galaxy evolutionary mass functions.

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arXiv2003

Spatially-resolved spectrophotometric analysis and modelling of the Superantennae

We have performed spatially-resolved spectroscopy of the double-nucleated Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxy IRAS 19254-7245, ``the Superantennae'', along the line connecting the two nuclei. These data are analysed with a spectral synthesis code, to derive the star formation and extinction properties of the galaxy. The star formation history (SFH) of the two nuclei is similarly characterized by two different main episodes: a recent burst, responsible of the observed emission lines, and an older one, occurred roughly 1 Gyr ago. We tentatively associate this bimodal SFH with a double encounter in the dynamical history of the merger. We have complemented our study with a detailed analysis of the broad band spectral energy distribution of the Superantennae, built from published photometry, providing the separate optical-to-mm SEDs of the two nuclei. Our analysis shows that: a) the southern nucleus is responsible for about 80% of the total infrared luminosity of the system, b) the L-band luminosity in the southern nucleus is dominated by the emission from an obscured AGN, providing about 40 to 50% of the bolometric flux between 8 and 1000 microns; c) the northern nucleus does not show evidence for AGN emission and appears to be in a post-starburst phase. As for the relative strengths of the AGN and starburst components, we find that, while they are comparable at FIR and sub-mm wavelengths, in the radio the Sy2 emission dominates by an order of magnitude the starburst.

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