No Arabic abstract
[Abridged] Due to their large distances, high-z galaxies are observed at a very low spatial resolution. In order to disentangle the evolution of galaxy kinematics from low resolution effects, we have used Fabry-Perot 3D Ha data-cubes of 153 nearby isolated galaxies from the GHASP survey to simulate data-cubes of galaxies at z=1.7. We show that the inner velocity gradient is lowered and is responsible for a peak in the velocity dispersion map. Toy-models of rotating disks have been built to recover the parameters from low resolution data. The poor resolution makes the kinematical inclination uncertain and the center difficult to recover. The major axis is retrieved with an accuracy higher than 5deg for 70% of the sample. Toy-models also enable to retrieve statistically the maximum velocity and the mean velocity dispersion of galaxies with a satisfying accuracy. This validates the use of the Tully-Fisher relation for high-z galaxies but the loss of resolution induces a lower slope at high-z. We conclude that the main kinematic parameters are better constrained for galaxies with an optical radius larger than three times the seeing. The simulated data have been compared to actual high-z galaxies data in the redshift range 3>z>0.4. For rotation-dominated galaxies, we find that the use of the velocity dispersion central peak as a signature of rotating disks may misclassify slow and solid body rotators (~30% of our sample). We show that the projected data cannot reproduce the high velocity dispersion observed in high-z galaxies except when no beam smearing correction is applied. This unambiguously means that, at the opposite of local evolved galaxies, there exists at high redshift at least a population of disk galaxies for which a large fraction of the dynamical support is due to random motions.
The role of disk instabilities, such as bars and spiral arms, and the associated resonances, in growing bulges in the inner regions of disk galaxies have long been studied in the low-redshift nearby Universe. There it has long been probed observationally, in particular through peanut-shaped bulges. This secular growth of bulges in modern disk galaxies is driven by weak, non-axisymmetric instabilities: it mostly produces pseudo-bulges at slow rates and with long star-formation timescales. Disk instabilities at high redshift (z>1) in moderate-mass to massive galaxies (10^10 to a few 10^11 Msun of stars) are very different from those found in modern spiral galaxies. High-redshift disks are globally unstable and fragment into giant clumps containing 10^8-10^9 Msun of gas and stars each, which results in highly irregular galaxy morphologies. The clumps and other features associated to the violent instability drive disk evolution and bulge growth through various mechanisms, on short timescales. The giant clumps can migrate inward and coalesce into the bulge in a few 10^8 yr. The instability in the very turbulent media drives intense gas inflows toward the bulge and nuclear region. Thick disks and supermassive black holes can grow concurrently as a result of the violent instability. This chapter reviews the properties of high-redshift disk instabilities, the evolution of giant clumps and other features associated to the instability, and the resulting growth of bulges and associated sub-galactic components.
Observations suggest that a large fraction of black hole growth occurs in normal star-forming disk galaxies. Here we describe simulations of black hole accretion in isolated disk galaxies with sufficient resolution (~5 pc) to track the formation of giant molecular clouds that feed the black hole. Black holes in z=2 gas-rich disks (fgas=50%) occasionally undergo ~10 Myr episodes of Eddington-limited accretion driven by stochastic collisions with massive, dense clouds. We predict that these gas-rich disks host weak AGNs 1/4 of the time, and moderate/strong AGNs 10% of the time. Averaged over 100 Myr timescales and the full distribution of accretion rates, the black holes grow at a few per cent of the Eddington limit -- sufficient to match observations and keep the galaxies on the MBH-Mbulge relation. This suggests that dense cloud accretion in isolated z=2 disks could dominate cosmic black hole growth. In z=0 disks with fgas=10%, Eddington-limited growth is extremely rare because typical gas clouds are smaller and more susceptible to disruption by AGN feedback. This results in an average black hole growth rate in high-fgas galaxies that is up to 1000 times higher than that in low-fgas galaxies. In all our simulations, accretion shows variability by factors of 10^4 on a variety of time scales, with variability at 1 Myr scales driven by the structure of the interstellar medium.
We present multi-frequency observations of the radio galaxy Hydra-A (3C218) located in the core of a massive, X-ray luminous galaxy cluster. IFU spectroscopy is used to trace the kinematics of the ionised and warm molecular hydrogen which are consistent with a ~ 5 kpc rotating disc. Broad, double-peaked lines of CO(2-1), [CII]157 $mu$m and [OI]63 $mu$m are detected. We estimate the mass of the cold gas within the disc to be M$_{gas}$ = 2.3 $pm$ 0.3 x 10$^9$ M$_{odot}$. These observations demonstrate that the complex line profiles found in the cold atomic and molecular gas are related to the rotating disc or ring of gas. Finally, an HST image of the galaxy shows that this gas disc contains a substantial mass of dust. The large gas mass, SFR and kinematics are consistent with the levels of gas cooling from the ICM. We conclude that the cold gas originates from the continual quiescent accumulation of cooled ICM gas. The rotation is in a plane perpendicular to the projected orientation of the radio jets and ICM cavities hinting at a possible connection between the kpc-scale cooling gas and the accretion of material onto the black hole. We discuss the implications of these observations for models of cold accretion, AGN feedback and cooling flows.
By virtue of its proximity, the Virgo Cluster is an ideal laboratory for testing our understanding structure formation in the Universe. In this spirit, we present a dynamical study Virgo galaxies as part of the Spectroscopic and H-band Imaging of Virgo (SHIVir) survey. H$alpha$ rotation curves (RC) for our gas-rich galaxies were modelled with a multi-parameter fit function from which various velocity measurements were inferred. Our study takes advantage of archival and our own new data as we aim to compile the largest Tully-Fisher relation (TFR) for a cluster to date. Extended velocity dispersion profiles (VDP) are integrated over varying aperture sizes to extract representative velocity dispersions (VDs) for gas-poor galaxies. Considering the lack of a common standard for the measurement of a fiducial galaxy VD in the literature, we rectify this situation by determining the radius at which the measured VD yields the tightest Fundamental Plane (FP). We found that radius to be at least 1 $R_{rm e}$, which exceeds the extent of most dispersion profiles in other works.
Motivated by Genzel et al.s observations of high-redshift star-forming galaxies, containing clumpy and turbulent rings or disks, we build a set of equations describing the dynamical evolution of gaseous disks with inclusion of star formation and its feedback. Transport of angular momentum is due to turbulent viscosity induced by supernova explosions in the star formation region. Analytical solutions of the equations are found for the initial cases of a gaseous ring and the integrated form for a gaseous disk, respectively. For a ring with enough low viscosity, it evolves in a slow processes of gaseous diffusion and star formation near the initial radius. For a high viscosity, the ring rapidly diffuses in the early phase. The diffusion drives the ring into a region with a low viscosity and start the second phase undergoing pile-up of gas at a radius following the decreased viscosity torque. The third is a sharply deceasing phase because of star formation consumption of gas and efficient transportation of gas inward forming a stellar disk. We apply the model to two $zsim 2$ galaxies BX 482 and BzK 6004, and find that they are undergoing a decline in their star formation activity.