No Arabic abstract
We present a stellar population analysis of the nearby, face-on, SA(s)c galaxy, NGC628, which is part of the PPAK IFS Nearby Galaxies Survey (PINGS). The data cover a field of view of ~6 arcmin in diameter with a sampling of $sim$2.7 arcsec per spectrum and a wavelength range (3700-7000A). We apply spectral inversion methods to derive 2-dimensional maps of star formation histories and chemical enrichment. We present maps of the mean (luminosity- and mass-weighted) age and metallicity that reveal the presence of structures such as a nuclear ring, previously seen in molecular gas. The disk is dominated in mass by an old stellar component at all radii sampled by our data, while the percentage of young stars increase with radius. The mean stellar age and metallicity profiles have a two defined regions, an inner one with flatter gradients (even slightly positive) and an external ones with a negative, steeper one, separated at $sim$60 arcsec. This break in the profiles is more prominent in the old stellar component. The young component shows a metallicity gradient that is very similar to that of the gas, and that is flatter in the whole disc. The agreement between the metallicity gradient of the young stars and the gas, and the recovery of the measured colours from our derived star formation histories validate the techniques to recover the age-metallicity and the star formation histories in disc galaxies from integrated spectra. We speculate about the possible origin of the break and conclude that the most likely scenario is that we are seeing, in the center of NGC 628, a dissolving bar, as predicted in some numerical simulations.
We present the Pmas/ppak Integral-field Supernova hosts COmpilation (PISCO) which comprises Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) of 232 supernova (SN) host galaxies, that hosted 272 SNe, observed over several semesters with the 3.5m telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory (CAHA). PISCO is the largest collection of SN host galaxies observed with wide-field IFS, totaling 466,347 individual spectra covering a typical spatial resolution of $sim$380 pc. While focused studies regarding specific SN Ia- related topics will be published elsewhere, this paper aims to present the properties of the SN environments with stellar population (SP) synthesis and the gas-phase ISM, providing additional results separating stripped-envelope SNe into their subtypes. With 11,270 HII regions detected in all galaxies, we present for the first time an HII region statistical analysis, that puts HII regions that have hosted SNe in context with all other SF clumps within their galaxies. SNe Ic are associated to more metal-rich, higher EW(H{alpha}) and higher SF rate environments within their host galaxies than the mean of all HII regions detected within each host, on contrary SNe IIb occur at the most different environments compared to other CC SNe types. We find two clear components of young and old SP at SNe IIn locations. We find that SNe II fast-decliners (IIL) tend to explode at locations where {Sigma}SFR is more intense. Finally, we outline how a future dedicated IFS survey of galaxies in parallel to an untargeted SN search would overcome the biases in current environmental studies.
LIRGs and ULIRGs are much more numerous at higher redshifts than locally, dominating the star-formation rate density at redshifts ~1 - 2. Therefore, they are important objects in order to understand how galaxies form and evolve through cosmic time. We aim to characterize the morphologies of the stellar continuum and the ionized gas (H_alpha) emissions from local sources, and investigate how they relate with the dynamical status and IR-luminosity of the sources. We use optical (5250 -- 7450 AA) integral field spectroscopic (IFS) data for a sample of 38 sources, taken with the VIMOS instrument, on the VLT. We present an atlas of IFS images of continuum emission, H_alpha emission, and H_alpha equivalent widths for the sample. The H_alpha images frequently reveal extended structures that are not visible in the continuum, such as HII regions in spiral arms, tidal tails, rings, of up to few kpc from the nuclear regions. The morphologies of the continuum and H_alpha images are studied on the basis of the C_{2kpc} parameter, which measures the concentration of the emission within the central 2 kpc. The C_{2kpc} values found for the H_alpha images are higher than those of the continuum for the majority (85%) of the objects in our sample. On the other hand, most of the objects in our sample (~62%) have more than half of their H_alpha emission outside the central 2 kpc. No clear trends are found between the values of C_{2kpc} and the IR-luminosity of the sources. On the other hand, our results suggest that the star formation in advance mergers and early-stage interactions is more concentrated than in isolated objects. We compared the H_alpha and infrared emissions as tracers of the star-formation activity. We find that the star-formation rates derived using the H_alpha luminosities generally underpredict those derived using the IR luminosities, even after accounting for reddening effects.
(Abridged) We perform integral field spectroscopy of a sample of Blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxies with the aim of analyzing their morphology, the spatial distribution of some of their physical properties (excitation, extinction, and electron density) and their relationship with the distribution and evolutionary state of the stellar populations. Integral field spectroscopy observations of the sample galaxies were carried out with the Potsdam Multi-Aperture Spectrophotometer (PMAS) at the 3.5 m telescope at Calar Alto Observatory. An area 16 arcsec x 16 arcsec in size was mapped with a spatial sampling of 1 arcsec x 1 arcsec. We obtained data in the 3590-6996 Angstroms spectral range, with a linear dispersion of 3.2 Angstroms per pixel. From these data we built two-dimensional maps of the flux of the most prominent emission lines, of two continuum bands, of the most relevant line ratios, and of the gas velocity field. Integrated spectra of the most prominent star-forming regions and of whole objects within the FOV were used to derive their physical parameters and the gas metal abundances. Six galaxies display the same morphology both in emission line and in continuum maps; only in two objects, Mrk 32 and Tololo 1434+032, the distributions of the ionized gas and of the stars differ considerably. In general the different excitation maps for a same object display the same pattern and trace the star-forming regions, as expected for objects ionized by hot stars; only the outer regions of Mrk 32, I Zw 123 and I Zw 159 display higher [SII]/Halpha values, suggestive of shocks. Six galaxies display an inhomogeneous dust distribution. Regarding the kinematics, Mrk 750, Mrk 206 and I Zw 159 display a clear rotation pattern, while in Mrk 32, Mrk 475 and I Zw 123 the velocity fields are flat.
Integral-field spectroscopy is the most effective method of exploiting the superb image quality of the ESO-VLT, allowing complex astrophysical processes to be probed on the angular scales currently accessible only for imaging data, but with the addition of information in the spectral dimension. We discuss science drivers and requirements for multiple deployable integral fields for spectroscopy in the near-infrared. We then describe a fully modular instrument concept which can achieve such a capability over a 5-10 field with up to 32 deployable integral fields, each fully cryogenic with 1-2.5 micron coverage at a spectral resolution of ~3000, each with a 4 x 4 field of view sampled at 0.2/pixel to take advantage of the best K-band seeing.
The general properties of luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs and ULIRGs) in the local universe are well known since large samples of these objects have been the subject of numerous spectroscopic works. There are, however, relatively few studies of large samples of LIRGs and ULIRGs using integral field spectroscopy (IFS). We analyze optical (3800-7200A) IFS data taken with the Potsdam Multi-Aperture Spectrophotometer (PMAS) of the central few kiloparsecs of 11 LIRGs. To study the stellar populations we fit the optical stellar continuum and the hydrogen recombination lines of selected regions. We analyze the excitation conditions of the gas using the spatially resolved properties of the brightest optical emission lines. The optical continua of the selected regions are well fitted with a combination of evolved (~0.7-10Gyr) and ionizing (1-20Myr) stellar populations. The latter is more obscured than the evolved population, and has visual extinctions in good agreement with those obtained from the Balmer decrement. Except for NGC 7771, there is no clear evidence for an important contribution to the optical light from an intermediate-aged population (~100-500Myr). Even after correcting for the presence of stellar absorption, a large fraction of spaxels with low observed equivalent widths of Halpha in emission still show enhanced [NII]/Halpha and [SII]/Halpha ratios. These ratios are likely to be produced by a combination of photoionization in HII regions and diffuse emission. These regions of enhanced ratios are generally coincident with low surface brightness HII regions and diffuse emission detected in the Halpha and Pa-alpha images. Using the PMAS line ratios and the NICMOS Pa-alpha photometry of HII regions we find that the fraction of diffuse emission in LIRGs varies from galaxy to galaxy, and it is generally less than 60% as found in other starburst galaxies. (Abridged)