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Chemical Enrichment (chemical + enrichment)
Selected AbstractsChemical enrichment of the intracluster medium by FR II radio sourcesMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 3 2007D. Heath ABSTRACT We present 2D axisymmetric hydrodynamic simulations investigating the long-term effect of Fanaroff,Riley type II radio galaxies on the metal distribution of the surrounding intracluster medium (ICM). A light jet is injected into a cooling flow atmosphere for 10,30 Myr. We then follow the subsequent evolution for 3 Gyr on a spherical grid spanning 3 Mpc in radius. A series of passive tracer particles were placed in an annulus about the cluster core to simulate metal carrying clouds in order to calculate the metallicity (Z) as a function of time and radial distance from the cluster centre. The jet has a significant effect on the ICM over the entire 3-Gyr period. By the end of the simulations, the jets produced metallicities of ,10 per cent of the initial metallicity of the cluster core throughout much of the cluster. The jets transport the metals not only in mixing regions, but also through upwelling ICM behind the jet, enriching the cluster over both long and short distances. [source] Is AGN feedback necessary to form red elliptical galaxies?MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2008A. Khalatyan ABSTRACT We have used the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code gadget-2 to simulate the formation of an elliptical galaxy in a group-size cosmological dark matter halo with mass Mhalo, 3 × 1012 h,1 M, at z= 0. The use of a stellar population synthesis model has allowed us to compute magnitudes, colours and surface brightness profiles. We have included a model to follow the growth of a central black hole and we have compared the results of simulations with and without feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN). We have studied the interplay between cold gas accretion and merging in the development of galactic morphologies, the link between colour and morphology evolution, the effect of AGN feedback on the photometry of early-type galaxies, the redshift evolution in the properties of quasar hosts, and the impact of AGN winds on the chemical enrichment of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We have found that the early phases of galaxy formation are driven by the accretion of cold filamentary flows, which form a disc galaxy at the centre of the dark matter halo. Disc star formation rates in this mode of galaxy growth are about as high as the peak star formation rates attained at a later epoch in galaxy mergers. When the dark matter halo is sufficiently massive to support the propagation of a stable shock, the gas in the filaments is heated to the virial temperature, cold accretion is shut down, and the star formation rate begins to decline. Mergers transform the spiral galaxy into an elliptical one, but they also reactivate star formation by bringing gas into the galaxy. Without a mechanism that removes gas from the merger remnants, the galaxy ends up with blue colours, which are atypical for its elliptical morphology. We have demonstrated that AGN feedback can solve this problem even with a fairly low heating efficiency. Our simulations support a picture where AGN feedback is important for quenching star formation in the remnant of wet mergers and for moving them to the red sequence. This picture is consistent with recent observational results, which suggest that AGN hosts are galaxies in migration from the blue cloud to the red sequence on the colour,magnitude diagram. However, we have also seen a transition in the properties of AGN hosts from blue and star forming at z, 2 to mainly red and dead at z, 0. Ongoing merging is the primary but not the only triggering mechanism for luminous AGN activity. Quenching by AGN is only effective after the cold filaments have dried out, since otherwise the galaxy is constantly replenished with gas. AGN feedback also contributes to raising the entropy of the hot IGM by removing low-entropy tails vulnerable to developing cooling flows. We have also demonstrated that AGN winds are potentially important for the metal enrichment of the IGM a high redshift. [source] Cosmological simulations of intergalactic medium enrichment from galactic outflowsMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2006Benjamin D. Oppenheimer ABSTRACT We investigate models of self-consistent chemical enrichment of the intergalactic medium (IGM) from z= 6.0 , 1.5, based on hydrodynamic simulations of structure formation that explicitly incorporate outflows from star-forming galaxies. Our main result is that outflow parametrizations derived from observations of local starburst galaxies, in particular momentum-driven wind scenarios, provide the best agreement with observations of C iv absorption at z, 2,5. Such models sufficiently enrich the high- z IGM to produce a global mass density of C iv absorbers that is relatively invariant from z= 5.5 , 1.5, in agreement with observations. This occurs despite continual IGM enrichment causing an increase in volume-averaged metallicity by ,× 5,10 over this redshift range, because energy input accompanying the enriching outflows causes a drop in the global ionization fraction of C iv. Comparisons to observed C iv column density and linewidth distributions and C iv -based pixel optical depth ratios provide significant constraints on wind models. Our best-fitting outflow models show mean IGM temperatures only slightly above our no-outflow case, metal filling factors of just a few per cent with volume-weighted metallicities around 10,3 at z, 3, significant amounts of collisionally ionized C iv absorption and a metallicity,density relationship that rises rapidly at low overdensities and flattens at higher ones. In general, we find that outflow speeds must be high enough to enrich the low-density IGM at early times but low enough not to overheat it, and concurrently must significantly suppress early star formation while still producing enough early metals. It is therefore non-trivial that locally calibrated momentum-driven wind scenarios naturally yield the desired strength and evolution of outflows, and suggest that such models represent a significant step towards understanding the impact of galactic outflows on galaxies and the IGM across cosmic time. [source] Cosmic evolution of metal densities: the enrichment of the intergalactic mediumMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2006F. Calura ABSTRACT By means of chemo-photometric models for galaxies of different morphological types, we have carried out a detailed study of the history of element production by spheroidal and dwarf irregular galaxies. Spheroidal galaxies suffer a strong and intense star formation episode at early times. In dwarf irregulars, the star formation rate (SFR) proceeds at a low regime but continuously. Both galactic types enrich the intergalactic medium (IGM) with metals by means of galactic winds. We have assumed that the galaxy number density is fixed and normalized to the value of the optical luminosity function observed in the local Universe. Our models allow us to investigate in detail how the metal fractions locked up in stars in spheroids and dwarf irregulars, those present in the interstellar medium (ISM) and those ejected into the IGM have changed with cosmic time. By relaxing the instantaneous recycling approximation and taking into account stellar lifetimes, for the first time we have studied the evolution of the chemical abundance ratios in the IGM and compared our predictions with a set of observations by various authors. Our results indicate that the bulk of the IGM enrichment is due to spheroids, with dwarf irregular galaxies playing a negligible role. Our predictions grossly account for the [O/H] observed in the IGM at high redshift, but overestimate the [C/H]. Furthermore, it appears hard to reproduce the abundance ratios observed in the high-redshift IGM. Some possible explanations are discussed in the text. This is the first attempt to study the abundance ratios in the IGM by means of detailed chemical evolution models which take into account the stellar lifetimes. Numerical simulations adopting our chemical evolution prescriptions could be useful to improve our understanding of the IGM chemical enrichment. [source] Spectral dating of high-redshift stellar populationsMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2004Ignacio Ferreras ABSTRACT Age derivation techniques for unresolved stellar populations at high redshifts are explored using the near-ultraviolet (NUV) spectrum of LBDS 53W091 (z= 1.55) and LBDS 53W069 (z= 1.43). The photometry and morphology of these galaxies , which are weak radio sources , suggest they are early-type systems, a feature that makes them ideal testbeds for the analysis of their ages and metallicities with the use of population-synthesis models. In the analysis that is based on simple stellar population models, we find a significant degeneracy between the derived ages and metallicities both in optical+near-infrared (NIR) photometric and NUV spectroscopic analyses. This degeneracy is not so strong for LBDS 53W069. However, even in this case the stellar age cannot be constrained better than to a range roughly encompassing one-third of the age of the Universe at z= 1.43 (90 per cent confidence level). We have explored several independent population-synthesis models and consistently found similar results. Broad-band photometry straddling the rest-frame 4000-Å break is also subject to a strong age,metallicity degeneracy. The use of realistic chemical enrichment assumptions significantly helps in disentangling the degeneracy. Based on this method, we derive the average stellar age for both galaxies around ,t,,, 3.6,3.8 Gyr with better constraints on the youngest possible ages (,3 Gyr at the 90 per cent confidence level). The comparison with simple stellar population models suggest subsolar metallicities (log Z/Z,=,0.2). A composite model using chemical enrichment gives slightly higher metallicities in both galaxies (log Z/Z,=, 0.1). Given that the stellar component in galaxies forms over times which are larger than a typical chemical enrichment time-scale, we conclude that composite stellar populations must be used in all photospectroscopic analyses of galaxies. From the observational point of view, the most efficient (and feasible) way to set limits on unresolved stellar populations comprises a combination of Balmer absorption lines along with either low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) rest-frame NUV spectroscopy or accurate optical and NIR photometry. [source] Formation of , Centauri from an ancient nucleated dwarf galaxy in the young Galactic discMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2003K. Bekki ABSTRACT We first present a self-consistent dynamical model in which , Cen is formed from an ancient nucleated dwarf galaxy merging with the first generation of the Galactic thin disc in a retrograde manner with respect to the Galactic rotation. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that during merging between the Galaxy and the , Cen host dwarf with MB,,14 mag and its nucleus mass of 107 M,, the outer stellar envelope of the dwarf is nearly completely stripped, whereas the central nucleus can survive from the tidal stripping because of its compactness. The developed naked nucleus has a very bound retrograde orbit around the young Galactic disc, as observed for , Cen, with apocentre and pericentre distances of ,8 and ,1 kpc, respectively. The Galactic tidal force can induce radial inflow of gas to the centre of the dwarf and consequently triggers moderately strong nuclear starbursts in a repetitive manner. This result implies that efficient nuclear chemical enrichment resulting from the later starbursts can be closely associated with the origin of the observed relatively young and metal-rich stars in , Cen. Dynamical heating by the , Cen host can transform the young thin disc into the thick disc during merging. [source] Dwarf elliptical galaxies: structure, star formation and colour,magnitude diagramsMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2001Giovanni Carraro The aim of this paper is to cast light on the formation and evolution of elliptical galaxies by means of N -body hydrodynamical simulations that include star formation, feedback and chemical evolution. Particular attention is paid to the case of dwarf spheroidals of the Local Group which, thanks to their proximity and modern ground-based and space instrumentation, can be resolved into single stars so that independent determinations of their age and star formation history can be derived. Indeed, the analysis of the colour,magnitude diagram of their stellar content allows us to infer the past history of star formation and chemical enrichment, thus setting important constraints on galactic models. Dwarf galaxies are known to exhibit complicated histories of star formation ranging from a single very old episode to a series of bursts over most of the Hubble time. By understanding the physical process driving star formation in these objects, we might be able to infer the mechanism governing star formation in more massive elliptical galaxies. Given these premises, we start from virialized haloes of dark matter, and follow the infall of gas into the potential wells and the formation of stars. We find that in objects of the same total mass, different star formation histories are possible, if the collapse phase started at different initial densities. We predict the final structure of dwarf spheroidal galaxies, their kinematics, their large-scale distribution of gas and stars, and their detailed histories of the star formation and metal enrichment. Using a population synthesis technique, star formation and metal enrichment rates are then adopted to generate the present colour,magnitude diagrams of the stellar populations hosted by dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The simulations are made assuming the redshift of galaxy formation and varying the cosmological parameters H0 and q0. The resulting colour,magnitude diagrams are then compared with the observational ones for some dwarf spheroidals of the Local Group. [source] X-ray evidence for multiphase hot gas with nearly solar Fe abundances in the brightest groups of galaxiesMONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2000David A. Buote We analyse the ASCA spectra accumulated within ,100 kpc radii of 12 of the brightest groups of galaxies. Upon fitting isothermal models (1T) jointly to the ASCA SIS and GIS spectra we obtain fits for most groups that are of poor or at best marginal quality and give very subsolar metallicities similar to previous studies, ,Z,=0.29±0.12 Z,. Two-temperature models (2T) provide significantly better fits for 11 out of the 12 groups, and in every case have metallicities that are substantially larger than obtained for the 1T models, ,Z,=0.75±0.24 Z,. Though not very well constrained, for most of the groups absorption in excess of the Galactic value is indicated for the cooler temperature component of the 2T models. A simple multiphase cooling flow model gives results analogous to the 2T models including large metallicities, ,Z,=0.65±0.17 Z,. The nearly solar Fe abundances and also solar ,/Fe ratios indicated by the 2T and cooling flow models are consistent with models of the chemical enrichment of ellipticals, groups, and clusters which assume ratios of Type Ia to Type II supernovae and an initial mass function (IMF) similar to those of the Milky Way. Thus we have shown that the very subsolar Fe abundances and Si/Fe enhancements obtained from most previous studies within r,100 kpc of galaxy groups are an artefact of fitting isothermal models to the X-ray spectra, which also has been recently demonstrated for the brightest elliptical galaxies. Owing to the importance of these results for interpreting X-ray spectra, in an appendix we use simulated ASCA observations to examine in detail the ,Fe bias' and ,Si bias' associated with the spectral fitting of ellipticals, groups and clusters of galaxies. [source] Metal enrichment of the intracluster medium: SN-driven galactic windsASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 9-10 2009V. Baumgartner Abstract We investigate the role of supernova (SN)-driven galactic winds in the chemical enrichment of the intracluster medium (ICM). Such outflows on galactic scales have their origin in huge star forming regions and expel metal enriched material out ofthe galaxies into their surroundings as observed, for example, in the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 253. As massive stars in OB-associations explode sequentially, shock waves are driven into the interstellar medium (ISM) of a galaxy and merge, forming a superbubble (SB). These SBs expand in a direction perpendicular to the disk plane following the density gradient of the ISM. We use the 2D analytical approximation by Kompaneets (1960) to model the expansion of SBs in an exponentially stratified ISM. This is modified in order to describe the sequence of SN-explosions as a time-dependent process taking into account the main-sequence life-time of the SN-progenitors and using an initial mass function to get the number of massive stars per mass interval. The evolution of the bubble in space and time is calculated analytically, from which the onset of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in the shell can be determined. In its further evolution, the shell will break up and high-metallicity gas will be ejected into the halo ofthe galaxy and even into the ICM. We derive the number of stars needed for blow-out depending on the scale height and density ofthe ambient medium, as well as the fraction of alpha- and iron peak elements contained in the hot gas. Finally, the amount of metals injected by Milky Way-type galaxies to the ICM is calculated confirming the importance ofthis enrichment process (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] Evolution of dwarf galaxies in the Centaurus A groupASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 9-10 2009D. Crnojevi Abstract The study of (dwarf) galaxies in nearby groups is one among the most powerful tools that can be used to investigate galaxy evolution, chemical enrichment and environmental effects on these objects. The Centaurus A group (at a distance of ,4 Mpc) is dynamically evolved and contains about 30 dwarf companions of different morphologies and stellar contents. Here we present the first results for the dwarf spheroidal galaxy population in this group. We use archival HST/ACS data to study their resolved stellar content. The resulting metallicity distribution functions reveal metal-poor populations and wide metallicity spreads for each galaxy. We find no clear trend of the derived physical properties as a function of galaxy position in the group. Finally, we compare our results to the dwarf population of the Local Group, and find no outstanding differences (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] Complexity in small-scale dwarf spheroidal galaxies , Ludwig Biermann Award Lecture 2008ASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 7 2009A. KochArticle first published online: 17 JUL 200 Abstract Our knowledge about the dynamics, the chemical abundances and the evolutionary histories of the more luminous dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies is constantly growing. However, very little is known about the enrichment of the ultra-faint systems recently discovered in large numbers in large sky surveys. Current low-resolution spectroscopy and photometric data indicate that these galaxies are highly dark matter dominated and predominantly metal poor. On the other hand, recent high-resolution abundance analyses indicate that some dwarf galaxies experienced highly inhomogeneous chemical enrichment, where star formation proceeds locally on small scales. In this article, I will review the kinematic and chemical abundance information of the Milky Way satellite dSphs that is presently available from low- and high resolution spectroscopy. Moreover, some of the most peculiar element and inhomogeneous enrichment patterns will be discussed and related to the question of to what extent the faintest dSph candidates could have contributed to the Galactic halo, compared to more luminous systems (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] | ||||||||||