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Register a new userEarly-Type Galaxy Star Formation Histories in Different Environments
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Patrick Fitzpatrick
Publication date
2014
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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We use very high-S/N stacked spectra of $sim$29,000 nearby quiescent early-type galaxies (ETGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to investigate variations in their star formation histories (SFHs) with environment at fixed position along and perpendicular to the Fundamental Plane (FP). We define three classifications of local group environment based on the `identities of galaxies within their dark matter halos: central `Brightest Group Galaxies (BGGs); Satellites; and Isolateds (those `most massive in a dark matter halo with no Satellites). We find that the SFHs of quiescent ETGs are almost entirely determined by their structural parameters $sigma$ and $Delta I_e$. Any variation with local group environment at fixed structure is only slight: Satellites have the oldest stellar populations, 0.02 dex older than BGGs and 0.04 dex older than Isolateds; BGGs have the highest Fe-enrichments, 0.01 dex higher than Isolateds and 0.02 dex higher than Satellites; there are no differences in Mg-enhancement between BGGs, Isolateds, and Satellites. Our observation that, to zeroth-order, the SFHs of quiescent ETGs are fully captured by their structures places important qualitative constraints on the degree to which late-time evolutionary processes (those which occur after a galaxys initial formation and main star-forming lifetime) can alter their SFHs/structures.
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The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property of star formation, offering key insight into the physics driving the process as well as informing our understanding of stellar populations, their by-products, and their impact on the surrounding medium. While the IMF appears to be fairly uniform in the Milky Way disk, it is not yet known how the IMF might behave across a wide range of environments, such as those with extreme gas temperatures and densities, high pressures, and low metallicities. We discuss new opportunities for measuring the IMF in such environments in the coming decade with JWST, WFIRST, and thirty-meter class telescopes. For the first time, we will be able to measure the high-mass slope and peak of the IMF via direct star counts for massive star clusters across the Milky Way and Local Group, providing stringent constraints for star formation theory and laying the groundwork for understanding distant and unresolved stellar systems.
Differences in the stellar populations of galaxies can be used to quantify the effect of environment on the star formation history. We target a sample of early-type galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in two different environmental regimes: close pairs and a general sample where environment is measured by the mass of their host dark matter halo. We apply a blind source separation technique based on principal component analysis, from which we define two parameters that correlate, respectively, with the average stellar age (eta) and with the presence of recent star formation (zeta) from the spectral energy distribution of the galaxy. We find that environment leaves a second order imprint on the spectra, whereas local properties - such as internal velocity dispersion - obey a much stronger correlation with the stellar age distribution.
The Herschel Space Observatory has had a tremendous impact on the study of extragalactic dust. Specifically, early-type galaxies (ETG) have been the focus of several studies. In this paper we combine results from two Herschel studies - a Virgo cluster study HeViCS and a broader, low-redshift H-ATLAS/GAMA study - and contrast the dust and associated properties for similar mass galaxies. This comparison is motivated by differences in results exhibited between multiple Herschel studies of early-type galaxies. A comparison between consistent modified blackbody derived dust mass is carried out, revealing strong differences between the two samples in both dust mass and dust-to-stellar mass ratio. In particular, the HeViCS sample lacks massive ETG with as high a specific dust content as found in H-ATLAS. This is most likely connected with the difference in environment for the two samples. We calculate nearest neighbour environment densities in a consistent way, showing that H-ATLAS ETG occupy sparser regions of the local Universe, whereas HeViCS ETG occupy dense regions. This is also true for ETG that are not Herschel-detected but are in the Virgo and GAMA parent samples. Spectral energy distributions are fit to the panchromatic data. From these we find that in H-ATLAS the specific star formation rate anticorrelates with stellar mass and reaches values as high as in our Galaxy. On the other hand HeViCS ETG appear to have little star formation. Based on the trends found here, H-ATLAS ETG are thought to have more extended star formation histories and a younger stellar population than HeViCS ETG.
We present an analysis of deep WSRT observations of the HI in 33 nearby early-type galaxies selected from a sample studied earlier at optical wavelengths with the SAURON integral-field spectrograph. The sample covers both field environments and the Virgo cluster. Our analysis shows that gas accretion plays a role in the evolution of field early-type galaxies, but less so for those in clusters. For detection limits of a few times 10^6 Msun, HI is detected in about 2/3 of the field galaxies, while <10% of the Virgo objects are detected. In about half of the detections, the HI forms a regularly rotating disc or ring. All HI discs have counterparts of ionised gas and inner HI discs are also detected in molecular gas. The cold ISM is dominated by molecular gas (M_H2/M_HI ~ 10). We conclude that accretion of HI is common for field early-type galaxies, but the amount of material involved is usually small. Cluster galaxies appear not to accrete HI. The few galaxies with a significant young sub-population all have inner gas discs, but for the remaining galaxies there is no trend between stellar population and HI. Some early-type galaxies are very gas rich, but only have an old population. The stellar populations of field galaxies are typically younger than those in Virgo. This is likely related to differences in accretion history. In about 50% of the galaxies we detect a central continuum source. In many objects this emission is from a low-luminosity AGN, in some it is consistent with the observed star formation. Galaxies with HI in the central regions are more likely detected in continuum. This is due to a higher probability for star formation to occur in such galaxies and not to HI-related AGN fuelling. (Abridged)
Analyzing 24 mu m MIPS/Spitzer data and the [O II]3727 line of a sample of galaxies at 0.4 < z < 0.8 from the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS), we investigate the ongoing star formation rate (SFR) and the specific star formation rate (SSFR) as a function of stellar mass in galaxy clusters and groups, and compare with field studies. As for the field, we find a decline in SFR with time, indicating that star formation (SF) was more active in the past, and a decline in SSFR as galaxy stellar mass increases, showing that the current SF contributes more to the fractional growth of low-mass galaxies than high-mass galaxies. However, we find a lower median SFR (by a factor of ~1.5) in cluster star-forming galaxies than in the field. The difference is highly significant when all Spitzer and emission-line galaxies are considered, regardless of color. It remains significant at z>0.6 after removing red emission-line (REL) galaxies, to avoid possible AGN contamination. While there is overlap between the cluster and field SFR-Mass relations, we find a population of cluster galaxies (10-25%) with reduced SFR for their mass. These are likely to be in transition from star-forming to passive. Comparing separately clusters and groups at z>0.6, only cluster trends are significantly different from the field, and the average cluster SFR at a given mass is ~2 times lower than the field. We conclude that the average SFR in star-forming galaxies varies with galaxy environment at a fixed galaxy mass.
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