Galaxy Luminosity (galaxy + luminosity)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Terms modified by Galaxy Luminosity

  • galaxy luminosity function

  • Selected Abstracts


    Where are the cosmic metals at z, 3?

    MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2008
    Jesper Sommer-Larsen
    ABSTRACT The global temperature distribution of the cosmic gas-phase oxygen at z, 3 is determined by combining high-resolution cosmological simulations of individual protogalactic as well as larger regions with the observed, extinction-corrected, rest-frame V -band galaxy luminosity function. The simulations have been performed with three different stellar initial mass functions (IMFs), a Kroupa (K98), a Salpeter (S) and an Arimoto,Yoshii (AY), spanning a range of a factor of 5 in chemical yield and specific supernova type II energy feedback. Gas-phase oxygen is binned according to T as log(T) , 4.0 (,cold'), log(T) , 4.5 (,warm') and log(T) , 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, 7.0 (,hot' phases). Oxygen is found to be distributed over all T phases, in particular for the top-heavy AY IMF. But, at variance with previous works, it is found that for the K98 and S IMFs the cold phase is the most important. For these IMFs it contains 47 and 37 per cent, respectively, of all gas-phase oxygen, mainly at fairly high density, nH, 0.1 cm,3. The implications of this in relation to observational damped Ly, absorber studies are discussed. In relation to ,missing metals' it is found that a significant fraction of the oxygen is located in a warm/hot phase that may be very difficult to detect. Moreover, it is found that less than about 20,25 per cent of the cosmic oxygen is associated with galaxies brighter than MV,,22, i.e. the faintest galaxy luminosities probed by current metallicity determinations for Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs). Hence, 75,80 per cent of the oxygen is also in this sense ,missing'. From the LBG-based, ,, 1500Å ultraviolet luminosity density history at z, 3, we obtain an essentially IMF-independent constraint on the mean oxygen density at z= 3. We compare this to what is obtained from our models, for the three different IMFs. We find that the K98 IMF is strongly excluded, as the chemical yield is simply too small, the Salpeter is marginally excluded, and the AY matches the constraint well. The K98 IMF can only match the data if the ,, 1500Å extinction corrections have been overestimated by factor of ,4, which seems highly unlikely. The yields for K98 are also far too small to match the observational data for C iv. The optimal IMF should have a yield intermediate between the S and AY. [source]


    The correlation of metallicity gradient with galaxy mass

    MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY: LETTERS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2005
    Duncan A. Forbes
    ABSTRACT A number of previous studies have searched for a correlation between radial metallicity gradients and early-type galaxy mass , no convincing trends have been found. Here we re-examine this issue with several key enhancements: using total metallicity from studies that have broken the age,metallicity degeneracy, excluding galaxies with young stellar ages (i.e. those that have experienced a recent central starburst) and using the K band to derive galaxy luminosities. We find that Coma cluster galaxies have metallicity gradients that correlate with galaxy mass. Furthermore, gradients have values similar to those of monolithic collapse models. The combination of dissipative formation and energy injection from supernovae provides a mechanism for the trends with galaxy mass; however, other explanations are possible. Additional high-quality observational data are needed to constrain further the gas physics involved in galaxy formation. [source]


    The velocity function of gas-rich galaxies

    MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2010
    M. A. Zwaan
    ABSTRACT We measure the distribution function of rotational velocities ,(Vc) of late-type galaxies from the HIPASS galaxy catalogue. Previous measurements of the late-type velocity function are indirect, derived by converting the galaxy luminosity function using the relation between galaxy luminosity and rotation velocity (the Tully,Fisher relation). The advantage of H i Parkes All Sky Survey is that space densities and velocity widths are both derived from the same survey data. We find good agreement with earlier inferred measurements of ,(Vc), but we are able to define the space density of objects with Vc as low as 30 km s,1. The measured velocity function is ,flat' (power-law slope ,,,1.0) below Vc, 100 km s,1. We compare our results with predictions based on , cold dark matter simulations and find good agreement for rotational velocities in excess of 100 km s,1, but at lower velocities current models over-predict the space density of objects. At Vc= 30 km s,1, this discrepancy is approximately a factor of 20. [source]


    Scale-dependent galaxy bias in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey as a function of luminosity and colour

    MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 2 2009
    James G. Cresswell
    ABSTRACT It has been known for a long time that the clustering of galaxies changes as a function of galaxy type. This galaxy bias acts as a hindrance to the extraction of cosmological information from the galaxy power spectrum or correlation function. Theoretical arguments show that a change in the amplitude of the clustering between galaxies and mass on large scales is unavoidable, but cosmological information can be easily extracted from the shape of the power spectrum or correlation function if this bias is independent of scale. Scale-dependent bias is generally small on large scales, k < 0.1 h Mpc,1, but on smaller scales can affect the recovery of ,mh from the measured shape of the clustering signal, and have a small effect on the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations. In this paper, we investigate the transition from scale-independent to scale-dependent galaxy bias as a function of galaxy population. We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5 sample to fit various models, which attempt to parametrize the turn-off from scale-independent behaviour. For blue galaxies, we find that the strength of the turn-off is strongly dependent on galaxy luminosity, with stronger scale-dependent bias on larger scales for more luminous galaxies. For red galaxies, the scale dependence is a weaker function of luminosity. Such trends need to be modelled in order to optimally extract the information available in future surveys, and can help with the design of such surveys. [source]


    Multiwavelength study of the nuclei of a volume-limited sample of galaxies , II.

    MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2007
    Optical, infrared, radio observations
    ABSTRACT We present optical and infrared broad-band images, radio maps, and optical spectroscopy for the nuclear region of a sample of nearby galaxies. The galaxies have been drawn from a complete volume-limited sample for which we have already presented X-ray imaging. We modelled the stellar component of the spectroscopic observations to determine the star formation history of our targets. Diagnostic diagrams were used to classify the emission-line spectra and determine the ionizing mechanism driving the nuclear regions. All those sources classified as active galactic nuclei present small Eddington ratios (,10,3,10,6), implying a very slow growth rate of their black holes. We finally investigate the relative numbers of active and normal nuclei as a function of host galaxy luminosity and find that the fraction of active galaxies slowly rises as a function of host absolute magnitude in the MB,,12 to ,22 range. [source]


    Halo model at its best: constraints on conditional luminosity functions from measured galaxy statistics

    MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 3 2006
    Asantha Cooray
    ABSTRACT Using the conditional luminosity function (CLF; the luminosity distribution of galaxies in a dark matter halo) as the fundamental building block, we present an empirical model for the galaxy distribution. The model predictions are compared with the published luminosity function (LF) and clustering statistics from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) at low redshifts, galaxy correlation functions from the Classifying Objects by Medium-Band Observations 17 (COMBO-17) survey at a redshift of 0.6, the Deep Extragalactic Evolutionary Probe 2 (DEEP2) survey at a redshift of unity, the Great Observatories Deep Origins Survey (GOODS) at a redshift around 3 and the Subaru/XMM,Newton Deep Field data at a redshift of 4. The comparison with statistical measurements allows us to constrain certain parameters related to analytical descriptions on the relation between a dark matter halo and its central galaxy luminosity, its satellite galaxy luminosity, and the fraction of early- and late-type galaxies of that halo. With the SDSS r -band LF at Mr < ,17, the lognormal scatter in the central galaxy luminosity at a given halo mass in the central galaxy,halo mass, Lc(M), relation is constrained to be 0.17+0.02,0.01, with 1, errors here and below. For the same galaxy sample, we find no evidence for a low-mass cut-off in the appearance of a single central galaxy in dark matter haloes, with the 68 per cent confidence level upper limit on the minimum mass of dark matter haloes to host a central galaxy, with luminosity Mr < ,17, is 2 × 1010 h,1 M,. If the total luminosity of a dark matter halo varies with halo mass as Lc(M) (M/Msat),s when M > Msat, using SDSS data, we find that Msat= (1.2+2.9,1.1) × 1013 h,1 M, and power-law slope ,s= 0.56+0.19,0.17 for galaxies with Mr < ,17 at z < 0.1. At z, 0.6, the COMBO-17 data allows these parameters for MB < ,18 galaxies to be constrained as (3.3+4.9,3.0) × 1013 h,1 M, and (0.62+0.33,0.27), respectively. At z, 4, Subaru measurements constrain these parameters for MB < ,18.5 galaxies as (4.12+5.90,4.08) × 1012 h,1 M, and (0.55+0.32,0.35), respectively. The redshift evolution associated with these parameters can be described as a combination of the evolution associated with the halo mass function and the luminosity,halo mass relation. The single parameter well constrained by clustering measurements is the average of the total satellite galaxy luminosity corresponding to the dark matter halo distribution probed by the galaxy sample. For SDSS, ,Lsat,= (2.1+0.8,0.4) × 1010 h,2 L,, while for GOODS at z, 3, ,Lsat, < 2 × 1011 h,2 L,. For SDSS, the fraction of galaxies that appear as satellites is 0.13+0.03,0.03, 0.11+0.05,0.02, 0.11+0.12,0.03 and 0.12+0.33,0.05 for galaxies with luminosities in the r, band from ,22 to ,21, ,21 to ,20, ,20 to ,19 and ,19 to ,18, respectively. In addition to constraints on central and satellite CLFs, we also determine model parameters of the analytical relations that describe the fraction of early- and late-type galaxies in dark matter haloes. We use our CLFs to establish the probability distribution of halo mass in which galaxies of a given luminosity could be found either at halo centres or as satellites. Finally, to help establish further properties of the galaxy distribution, we propose the measurement of cross-clustering between galaxies divided into two distinctly different luminosity bins. Our analysis shows how CLFs provide a stronger foundation to built-up analytical models of the galaxy distribution when compared with models based on the halo occupation number alone. [source]


    Populating dark matter haloes with galaxies: comparing the 2dFGRS with mock galaxy redshift surveys

    MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 4 2004
    Xiaohu Yang
    ABSTRACT In two recent papers, we developed a powerful technique to link the distribution of galaxies to that of dark matter haloes by considering halo occupation numbers as a function of galaxy luminosity and type. In this paper we use these distribution functions to populate dark matter haloes in high-resolution N -body simulations of the standard ,CDM cosmology with ,m= 0.3, ,,= 0.7 and ,8= 0.9. Stacking simulation boxes of 100 h,1 Mpc and 300 h,1 Mpc with 5123 particles each we construct mock galaxy redshift surveys out to a redshift of z= 0.2 with a numerical resolution that guarantees completeness down to 0.01L*. We use these mock surveys to investigate various clustering statistics. The predicted two-dimensional correlation function ,(rp, ,) reveals clear signatures of redshift space distortions. The projected correlation functions for galaxies with different luminosities and types, derived from ,(rp, ,), match the observations well on scales larger than ,3 h,1 Mpc. On smaller scales, however, the model overpredicts the clustering power by about a factor two. Modelling the ,finger-of-God' effect on small scales reveals that the standard ,CDM model predicts pairwise velocity dispersions (PVD) that are ,400 km s,1 too high at projected pair separations of ,1 h,1 Mpc. A strong velocity bias in massive haloes, with bvel,,gal/,dm, 0.6 (where ,gal and ,dm are the velocity dispersions of galaxies and dark matter particles, respectively) can reduce the predicted PVD to the observed level, but does not help to resolve the overprediction of clustering power on small scales. Consistent results can be obtained within the standard ,CDM model only when the average mass-to-light ratio of clusters is of the order of 1000 (M/L), in the B -band. Alternatively, as we show by a simple approximation, a ,CDM model with ,8, 0.75 may also reproduce the observational results. We discuss our results in light of the recent WMAP results and the constraints on ,8 obtained independently from other observations. [source]


    Multiwavelength study of the nuclei of a volume-limited sample of galaxies , I. X-ray observations

    MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, Issue 1 2000
    P. Lira
    We discuss ROSAT HRI X-ray observations of 33 very nearby galaxies, sensitive to X-ray sources down to a luminosity of approximately 1038 erg s,1. The galaxies are selected from a complete, volume-limited sample of 46 galaxies with for which we have extensive multiwavelength data. For an almost complete subsample with (29/31 objects) we have HRI images. Contour maps and source lists are presented within the central region of each galaxy, together with nuclear upper limits where no nuclear source was detected. Nuclear X-ray sources are found to be very common, occurring in ,35 per cent of the sample. Nuclear X-ray luminosity is statistically connected to host galaxy luminosity , there is not a tight correlation, but the probability of a nuclear source being detected increases strongly with galaxy luminosity, and the distribution of nuclear luminosities seems to show an upper envelope that is roughly proportional to galaxy luminosity. While these sources do seem to be a genuinely nuclear phenomenon rather than nuclear examples of the general X-ray source population, it is far from obvious that they are miniature Seyfert nuclei. The more luminous nuclei are very often spatially extended, and H ii region nuclei are detected just as often as LINERs. Finally, we also note the presence of fairly common superluminous X-ray sources in the off-nuclear population , out of 29 galaxies we find nine sources with a luminosity greater than 1039 erg s,1. These show no particular preference for more luminous galaxies. One is already known to be a multiple SNR system, but most have no obvious optical counterpart and their nature remains a mystery. [source]


    Comparisons of the environmental dependence of galaxy properties between blue late-types and red late-types

    ASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 7 2010
    X.F. Deng
    Abstract Using the volume-limited Main galaxy sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 (SDSS DR6), we investigate the difference of the environmental dependence of galaxy properties between blue late-types and red late-types, and find that the galaxy luminosity and concentration index are almost independent of the local density in the two samples. We also note a strong correlation between g , r color and the environment in the red late-type sample, while this correlation is very weak in the blue late-type sample (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source]


    The K - z diagram of FIRST radio sources identified in the Boötes and Cetus fields

    ASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 8 2009
    K. El Bouchefry
    Abstract This paper presents the Hubble diagram (K - z relation) for FIRST (Faint Images of the Radio Sky at 20 cm) radio sources identified in the Boötes and Cetus fields. The correlation between the K magnitude of the FIRST-NDWFS sample and the photometric redshifts found to be linear. The dispersion about the best fit line is given by 1.53 for the whole sample and 0.75 at z > 1. The paper also presents a composite K - z diagram of FIRST radio sources and low-frequency selected radio samples with progressively fainter flux-density limits (3CRR, 6C, 7CRS and the EIS-NVSS sample). The majority of FIRST radio sources lie fainter than the no evolution curve (3 L* galaxies) probably highlighting the fact that the galaxy luminosity is correlated with the radio power (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source]