arXiv subjects

Stephane Courteau

Publications and source records attributed to Stephane Courteau.

59 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv1996

The Bulge/Disk Connection in Late-type Spirals

Recent ground-based photometric investigations suggest that central regions of late-type spirals are closely coupled to the inner disk and probably formed via secular evolution. Evidence presented in support of this model includes the predominance of exponential bulges, the correlation of bulge and disk scale lengths, blueness of the bulge and small differences between bulge and central disk colors, detection of spiral structure into the core, and rapid rotation. Recent HST observations show that our own bulge and that of M31, M32, and M33 probably harbor both an old and intermediate-age populations in agreement with models of early collapse of the spheroid plus gas transfer from the disk. Secular evolution provides a mechanism to build-up central regions in late-type spirals; mergers or accretion of small satellites could explain the brighter, kinematically distinct bulges of Sa's and SO's.

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arXiv1996

Modeling the Mass Distribution in Spiral Galaxies

We use deep r-band photometry and Halpha rotation curves for a sample of 290 late-type spirals to model their mass distribution within the optical radius. We examine luminosity profile decompositions into bulge and disk carefully and confirm that bulge light is best modeled by a seeing-convolved exponential profile. The optical rotation curves are well-reproduced with a combination of bulge and "maximum" disk components only. No dark halo is needed. The disk mass-to-light ratios (M/L's) correlate with the "size" of galaxies, as measured by mass, luminosity, or disk scale length. Correcting for this scale effect yields a narrow distribution of intrinsic M/L's for this galaxy population. By combining these models with HI data for other samples, we confirm that the luminous mass fraction increases with galaxy "size".

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arXiv1996

Homogeneous Velocity-Distance Data for Peculiar Velocity Analysis. III. The Mark III Catalog of Galaxy Peculiar Velocities

This is the third in a series of papers in which we assemble and analyze a homogeneous catalog of peculiar velocity data. In Papers I and II, we described the Tully-Fisher (TF) redshift-distance samples that constitute the bulk of the catalog, and our methodology for obtaining mutually consistent TF calibrations for these samples. In this paper, we supply further technical details of the treatment of the data, and present a subset of the catalog in tabular form. The full catalog, known as the Mark III Catalog of Galaxy Peculiar Velocities, is available in accessible on-line databases, as described herein. The electronic catalog incorporates not only the TF samples discussed in Papers I and II, but also elliptical galaxy Dn-sigma samples originally presented elsewhere. The relative zeropointing of the elliptical and spiral data sets is discussed here. The basic elements of the Mark III Catalog are the observables for each object (redshift, magnitude, velocity width, etc.) and inferred distances derived from the TF or Dn-sigma relations. Malmquist bias-corrected distances are computed for each catalog object using density fields obtained from the IRAS 1.2 Jy redshift survey. Distances for both individual objects and groups are provided. A variety of auxiliary data, including distances and local densities predicted from the IRAS redshift survey reconstruction method, are tabulated as well. We study the distributions of TF residuals for three of our samples and conclude that they are well-approximated as Gaussian. For the Mathewson et al. sample we demonstrate a significant decrease in TF scatter with increasing velocity width. We test for, but find no evidence of, a correlation between TF residuals and galaxy morphology.

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arXiv1996

The Rotation Curves of Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift

We have undertaken a pilot project to measure the rotation velocities of spiral galaxies in the redshift range 0.18 < z < 0.4 using high dispersion long slit spectroscopy obtained with the Palomar 5m telescope. One field galaxy and three cluster objects known to have strong emission lines were observed over wavelength ranges covering the redshifted lines of [OII], CaII K, H beta, and [OIII]. Two of the objects show extended line emission that allows the tracing of the rotation curve in one or more lines. A line width similar to that obtained with single dish telescopes for the 21-cm HI line observed in lower redshift galaxies can be derived from the observed H beta, [OII], and [OIII] emission by measuring a characteristic width from the velocity histogram. These moderately distant galaxies have much stronger emission lines than typical low-redshift spirals but they appear to be kinematically similar. Application of the Tully-Fisher relation suggests that the two galaxies with rotation curves are intrinsically brighter at R-band than nearby galaxies.

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arXiv1994

Homogeneous Velocity-Distance Data for Peculiar Velocity Analysis. I. Calibration of Cluster Samples

We have combined five Tully-Fisher (TF) redshift-distance samples for peculiar velocity analysis: the cluster data of Han, Mould and coworkers (1991-93, HM) and Willick (1991, W91CL), and the field data of Aaronson et al. (1992), Willick (1991), Courteau & Faber (1992), and Mathewson et al. (1992), totaling over 3000 spiral galaxies. We treat the cluster data in this paper, which is the first of a series; in Paper II we treat the field TF samples. These data are to be combined with elliptical data (e.g., Faber et al. 1989) to form the MARK III CATALOG OF GALAXY PECULIAR VELOCITIES, which we will present in Paper III. The catalog will be used as input for POTENT reconstruction of velocity and density fields, described in later papers, as well as for alternative velocity analyses. Our main goal in Papers I & II is to place the TF data onto a self-consistent system by (i) applying a uniform set of corrections to the raw observables, (ii) determining the TF slopes and scatters separately for each sample, and (iii) adjusting the TF zeropoints to ensure mutually consistent distances. The global zeropoint is set by the HM sample, chosen because of its depth and uniformity on the sky and its substantial overlap with each of the other samples. In this paper, we calibrate the ``forward'' and ``inverse'' TF relations for HM and W91CL. We study the selection criteria for these samples and correct for the resultant statistical biases. The bias corrections are validated by comparing forward and inverse cluster distances. We find that many sample clusters are better modeled as ``expanding'' than relaxed, which significantly affects the TF calibrations. Proper corrections for internal extinction are derived self-consistently from the data.

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