No Arabic abstract
We report on preliminary results from a new deep 21-cm survey of the Andromeda galaxy, based on observations performed with the Synthesis Telescope and the 26-m antenna at DRAO. The HI distribution and kinematics of the disc are analyzed and basic dynamical properties are derived. New HI structures are discovered, like thin HI spur-like structures and an external arm in the disc outskirts. The HI spurs are related to perturbed stellar clumps outside the main disc of M31. The external arm lies on the far, receding side of the galaxy and has no obvious counterpart in the opposite side. These HI perturbations probably result from tidal interactions with companions. It is found a dynamical mass of 4.7 +/- 0.5 x10^11 Msol enclosed within a radius R = 38 kpc and a total mass of ~1 x10^12 Msol inside the virial radius.
[Abridged] We present a new deep 21-cm survey of the Andromeda galaxy, based on high resolution observations performed with the Synthesis Telescope and the 26-m antenna at DRAO. The HI distribution and kinematics of the disc are analyzed and basic dynamical properties are given. The rotation curve is measured out to 38 kpc, showing a nuclear peak, a dip around 4 kpc, two distinct flat parts and an increase in the outermost regions. Except for the innermost regions, the axisymmetry of the gas rotation is very good. A very strong warp of the HI disc is evidenced. The central regions appear less inclined than the average disc inclination, while the outer regions appear more inclined. Mass distribution models by LCDM NFW, Einasto or pseudo-isothermal dark matter halos with baryonic components are presented. They fail to reproduce the exact shape of the rotation curve. No significant differences are measured between the various shapes of halo. The dynamical mass of M31 enclosed within a radius of 38 kpc is (4.7 +/- 0.5) x 10^11 Msol. The dark matter component is almost 4 times more massive than the baryonic mass inside this radius. A total mass of 1.0 x 10^12 Msol is derived inside the virial radius. New HI structures are discovered in the datacube, like the detection of up to five HI components per spectrum, which is very rarely seen in other galaxies. The most remarkable new HI structures are thin HI spurs and an external arm in the disc outskirts. A relationship between these spurs and outer stellar clumps is evidenced. The external arm is 32 kpc long, lies on the far side of the galaxy and has no obvious counterpart on the other side of the galaxy. Its kinematics clearly differs from the outer adjacent disc. Both these HI perturbations could result from tidal interactions with galaxy companions.
One of our closest neighbours, the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) has been the subject of numerous large area studies across the entire spectrum, but so far full-disk radio surveys have been conducted only at low resolution. The new wide-field capabilities of the DiFX software correlator present the possibility of imaging the entire primary beam of a VLBI array, thus enabling a high resolution wide-field study of the entire galaxy. Using the VLBA and EVN, pilot observations of M31 have been carried out with the aim of using these new wide-field techniques to characterise the population of compact components at VLBI resolution both within and behind one of our nearest neighbours. This contribution describes the observations carried out, the preliminary processing and first results.
We recently found the globular cluster (GC) EXT8 in M31 to have an extremely low metallicity of [Fe/H]=-2.91+/-0.04 using high-resolution spectroscopy. Here we present a colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) for EXT8, obtained with the Wide Field Camera 3 on board the Hubble Space Telescope. Compared with the CMDs of metal-poor Galactic GCs, we find that the upper red giant branch (RGB) of EXT8 is about 0.03 mag bluer in F606W-F814W and slightly steeper, as expected from the low spectroscopic metallicity. The observed colour spread on the upper RGB is consistent with being caused entirely by the measurement uncertainties, and we place an upper limit of sigma(F606W-F814W)=0.015 mag on any intrinsic colour spread. The corresponding metallicity spread can be up to sigma([Fe/H])=0.2 dex or >0.7 dex, depending on the isochrone library adopted. The horizontal branch (HB) is located mostly on the blue side of the instability strip and has a tail extending to at least M(F606W)=+3, as in the Galactic GC M15. We identify two candidate RR Lyrae variables and several UV-luminous post-HB/post AGB star candidates, including one very bright (M(F300X)=-3.2) source near the centre of EXT8. The surface brightness of EXT8 out to a radius of 25 arcsec is well fitted by a Wilson-type profile with an ellipticity of epsilon=0.20, a semi-major axis core radius of 0.25, and a central surface brightness of 15.2 mag per square arcsec in the F606W band, with no evidence of extra-tidal structure. Overall, EXT8 has properties consistent with it being a normal, but very metal-poor GC, and its combination of relatively high mass and very low metallicity thus remains challenging to explain in the context of GC formation theories operating within the hierarchical galaxy assembly paradigm.
The Spitzer Deep, Wide-Field Survey (SDWFS) is a four-epoch infrared survey of ten square degrees in the Bootes field of the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey using the IRAC instrument on the Spitzer Space Telescope. SDWFS, a Cycle four Spitzer Legacy project, occupies a unique position in the area-depth survey space defined by other Spitzer surveys. The four epochs that make up SDWFS permit -- for the first time -- the selection of infrared-variable and high proper motion objects over a wide field on timescales of years. Because of its large survey volume, SDWFS is sensitive to galaxies out to z~3 with relatively little impact from cosmic variance for all but the richest systems. The SDWFS datasets will thus be especially useful for characterizing galaxy evolution beyond z~1.5. This paper explains the SDWFS observing strategy and data processing, presents the SDWFS mosaics and source catalogs, and discusses some early scientific findings. The publicly-released, full-depth catalogs contain 6.78, 5.23, 1.20, and 0.96 x 10e5 distinct sources detected to the average 5-sigma, 4 diameter, aperture-corrected limits of 19.77, 18.83, 16.50, and 15.82 Vega mag at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8.0 micron, respectively. The SDWFS number counts and color-color distribution are consistent with other, earlier Spitzer surveys. At the 6 min integration time of the SDWFS IRAC imaging, more than 50% of isolated FIRST radio sources and more than 80% of on-axis XBootes sources are detected out to 8.0 micron. Finally, we present the four highest proper motion IRAC-selected sources identified from the multi-epoch imaging, two of which are likely field brown dwarfs of mid-T spectral class.
We present results of a blind 21cm HI-line imaging survey of a galaxy overdensity located behind the Milky Way at $ell,b$ $approx$ 160 deg, 0.5 deg. The overdensity corresponds to a Zone-of-Avoidance crossing of the Perseus-Pisces Supercluster filament. Although it is known that this filament contains an X-ray galaxy cluster (3C129) hosting two strong radio galaxies, little is known about galaxies associated with this potentially rich cluster because of the high Galactic dust extinction. We mapped a sky area of $sim$9.6 sq.deg using the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in a hexagonal mosaic of 35 pointings observed for 12 hours each, in the radial velocity range $cz = 2400 - 16600$ km/s. The survey has a sensitivity of 0.36 mJy/beam rms at a velocity resolution of 16.5 km/s. We detected 211 galaxies, 62% of which have a near-infrared counterpart in the UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey. We present a catalogue of the HI properties and an HI atlas containing total intensity maps, position-velocity diagrams, global HI profiles and UKIDSS counterpart images. For the resolved galaxies we also present HI velocity fields and radial HI surface density profiles. A brief analysis of the structures outlined by these galaxies finds that 87 of them lie at the distance of the Perseus-Pisces Supercluster ($cz sim 4000 - 8000$ km/s) and seem to form part of the 3C129 cluster. Further 72 detections trace an overdensity at a velocity of $cz approx$ 10000 km/s and seem to coincide with a structure predicted from mass density reconstructions in the first 2MASS Redshift Survey.