No Arabic abstract
In the quest for the formation and evolution of galaxy clusters, Rakos and co-workers introduced a spectrophotometric method using the modified Stromgren photometry. But with the considerable debate toward the projects abilities, we re-introduce the system after a thorough testing of repeatability of colors and reproducibility of the ages and metallicities for six common galaxies in the three A779 data sets. A fair agreement has been found between the modified Stromgren and Stromgren filter systems to produce similar colors (with the precision of 0.09 mag in (uz-vz), 0.02 mag in (bz-yz), and 0.03 mag in (vz-vz)), ages and metallicities (with the uncertainty of 0.36 Gyr and 0.04 dex from the PCA and 0.44 Gyr and 0.2 dex using the GALEV models). We infer that the technique is able to relieve the age-metallicity degeneracy by separating the age effects from the metallicity effects, but still unable to completely break. We further extend this paper to re-study the evolution of galaxies in the low mass, dynamically poor A779 cluster by correlating the luminosity (mass), density, radial distance with the estimated age, metallicity, and the star formation history. Our results distinctly show the bimodality of the young, low-mass, metal-poor population with the mean age of 6.7 Gyr (pm 0.5 Gyr) and the old, high-mass, metal-rich galaxies with the mean age of 9 Gyr (pm 0.5 Gyr). The method also observes the color evolution of the blue cluster galaxies to red, and the downsizing phenomenon. Our analysis shows that the modified Stromgren photometry is very well suited for studying low- and intermediate-z clusters, as it is capable of observing deeper with better spatial resolution at spectroscopic redshift limits, and the narrowband filters estimate the age and metallicity with lesser uncertainties compared to other methods that study stellar population scenarios.
NGC 7067 is a young open cluster located in the direction between the first and the second Galactic quadrants and close to the Perseus spiral arm. This makes it useful for studies of the nature of the Milky Way spiral arms. Stromgren photometry taken with the Wide Field Camera at the Isaac Newton Telescope allowed us to compute individual physical parameters for the observed stars and hence to derive clusters physical parameters. Spectra from the 1.93-m telescope at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence helped to check and improve the results. We obtained photometry for 1233 stars, individual physical parameters for 515 and spectra for 9 of them. The 139 selected cluster members lead to a cluster distance of 4.4+/-0.4 kpc, with an age below log10(t(yr))=7.3 and a present Mass of 1260+/-160Msun. The morphology of the data reveals that the centre of the cluster is at (ra,dec)=(21:24:13.69,+48:00:39.2) J2000, with a radius of 6.1arcsec. Stromgren and spectroscopic data allowed us to improve the previous parameters available for the cluster in the literature.
A large population of ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) was recently discovered in the Coma cluster. Here we present optical spectra of three such UDGs, DF7, DF44 and DF17, which have central surface brightnesses of $mu_g approx 24.4-25.1$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$. The spectra were acquired as part of an ancillary program within the SDSS-IV MaNGA Survey. We stacked 19 fibers in the central regions from larger integral field units (IFUs) per source. With over 13.5 hours of on-source integration we achieved a mean signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) in the optical of $9.5$AA$^{-1}$, $7.9$AA$^{-1}$ and $5.0$AA$^{-1}$, respectively, for DF7, DF44 and DF17. Stellar population models applied to these spectra enable measurements of recession velocities, ages and metallicities. The recession velocities of DF7, DF44 and DF17 are $6599^{+40}_{-25}$km/s, $6402^{+41}_{-39}$km/s and $8315^{+43}_{-43}$km/s, spectroscopically confirming that all of them reside in the Coma cluster. The stellar populations of these three galaxies are old and metal-poor, with ages of $7.9^{+3.6}_{-2.5}$Gyr, $8.9^{+4.3}_{-3.3}$Gyr and $9.1^{+3.9}_{-5.5}$Gyr, and iron abundances of $mathrm{[Fe/H]}$ $-1.0^{+0.3}_{-0.4}$, $-1.3^{+0.4}_{-0.4}$ and $-0.8^{+0.5}_{-0.5}$, respectively. Their stellar masses are $3$-$6times10^8 M_odot$. The UDGs in our sample are as old or older than galaxies at similar stellar mass or velocity dispersion (only DF44 has an independently measured dispersion). They all follow the well-established stellar mass$-$stellar metallicity relation, while DF44 lies below the velocity dispersion-metallicity relation. These results, combined with the fact that UDGs are unusually large for their stellar mass, suggest that stellar mass plays a more important role in setting stellar population properties for these galaxies than either size or surface brightness.
Dwarf galaxies are generally faint. To derive their age and metallicity distributions, it is critical to optimize the use of any collected photon. Koleva et al., using full spectrum fitting, have found strong population gradients in some dwarf elliptical galaxies. Here, we show that the population profiles derived with this method are consistent and more precise than those obtained with spectrophotometric indices. This allows studying fainter objects in less telescope time.
NGC 2419 is a peculiar Galactic globular cluster in terms of size/luminosity, and chemical abundance anomalies. Here, we present Stromgren $uvby$ photometry of the cluster. Using the gravity- and metallicity-sensitive $c_1$ and $m_1$ indices, we identify a sample of likely cluster members extending well beyond the formal tidal radius with an estimated contamination by non-members of only 1%. We derive photometric [Fe/H] of red giants, and depending on which literature metallicity relation we use, find reasonable to excellent agreement with spectroscopic [Fe/H]. We demonstrate explicitly that the photometric errors are not Gaussian, and using a realistic model for the photometric uncertainties, find a formal internal [Fe/H] spread of $sigma=0.11^{+0.02}_{-0.01}$ dex. This is an upper limit to the clusters true [Fe/H] spread and may partially/entirely reflect the limited precision of the photometric metallicity estimation and systematic effects. The lack of correlation between spectroscopic and photometric [Fe/H] of individual stars is further evidence against a [Fe/H] spread on the 0.1 dex level. Finally, the CN-sensitive $delta_4$ anti-correlates strongly with Mg abundance, indicating that the 2nd generation stars are N-enriched. Absence of similar correlations in some other CN-sensitive indices supports the second generation being He-rich, which in these indices approximately compensates the shift due to CN. Compared to a single continuous distribution with finite dispersion, the observed $delta_4$ distribution is slightly better fit by two discrete populations, with the N-enhanced stars accounting for 53$pm$5%. NGC 2419 appears to be very similar to other metal-poor Galactic globular clusters with a similarly N-enhanced second generation and little or no variation in [Fe/H], which sets it apart from other suspected accreted nuclei such as {omega}Cen. (abridged)
Recent observations have probed the formation histories of nearby elliptical galaxies by tracking correlations between the stellar population parameters, age and metallicity, and the structural parameters that enter the Fundamental Plane, radius and velocity dispersion sigma. These studies have found intriguing correlations between these four parameters. In this work, we make use of a semi-analytic model, based on halo merger trees extracted from the Bolshoi cosmological simulation, that predicts the structural properties of spheroid-dominated galaxies based on an analytic model that has been tested and calibrated against an extensive suite of hydrodynamic+N-body binary merger simulations. We predict the radius, sigma, luminosity, age, and metallicity of spheroid-dominated galaxies, enabling us to compare directly to observations. Our model predicts a strong correlation between age and sigma for early-type galaxies, and no significant correlation between age and radius, in agreement with observations. In addition we predict a strong correlation between metallicity and sigma, and a weak correlation between metallicity and radius, in qualitative agreement with observations. We find that the correlations with sigma arise as a result of the strong link between sigma and the galaxy assembly time. Minor mergers produce a large change in radius while leaving sigma nearly the same, which explains the weaker trends with radius.