No Arabic abstract
We present the results of a MIPS-24um study of the Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) of 535 high-redshift galaxy clusters. The clusters are drawn from the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (SpARCS), which effectively provides a sample selected on total stellar mass, over 0.2 < z < 1.8 within the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic (SWIRE) Survey fields. 20%, or 106 clusters have spectroscopically confirmed redshifts, and the rest have redshifts estimated from the color of their red sequence. A comparison with the public SWIRE images detects 125 individual BCGs at 24um > 100uJy, or 23%. The luminosity-limited detection rate of BCGs in similar richness clusters (Ngal> 12) increases rapidly with redshift. Above z ~ 1, an average of ~20% of the sample have 24um-inferred infrared luminosities of LIR > 10^12 Lsun, while the fraction below z ~ 1 exhibiting such luminosities is < 1 %. The Spitzer-IRAC colors indicate the bulk of the 24um-detected population is predominantly powered by star formation, with only 7/125 galaxies lying within the color region inhabited by Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Simple arguments limit the star-formation activity to several hundred million years and this may therefore be indicative of the timescale for AGN feedback to halt the star formation. Below redshift z ~ 1 there is not enough star formation to significantly contribute to the overall stellar mass of the BCG population, and therefore BCG growth is likely dominated by dry-mergers. Above z~ 1, however, the inferred star formation would double the stellar mass of the BCGs and is comparable to the mass assembly predicted by simulations through dry mergers. We cannot yet constrain the process driving the star formation for the overall sample, though a single object studied in detail is consistent with a gas-rich merger.
We present here a three-dimesional hydrodynamical simulation for star formation. Our aim is to explore the effect of the metal-line cooling on the thermodynamics of the star-formation process. We explore the effect of changing the metallicty of the gas from $Z/Z_{odot}=10^{-4}$ to $Z/Z_{odot}=10^{-2}$. Furthermore, we explore the implications of using the observational abundance pattern of a CEMP-no star, which have been considered to be the missing second-generation stars, the so-called Pop. III.2 stars. In order to pursue our aim, we modelled the microphysics by employing the public astrochemistry package KROME, using a chemical network which includes sixteen chemical species (H, H$^{+}$, H$^{-}$, He, He$^{+}$, He$^{++}$, e$^{-}$, H$_{2}$, H$_{2}^{+}$, C, C$^{+}$, O, O$^{+}$, Si, Si$^{+}$, and Si$^{++}$). We couple KROME with the fully three-dimensional Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code GRADSPH. With this framework we investigate the collapse of a metal-enhanced cloud, exploring the fragmentation process and the formation of stars. We found that the metallicity has a clear impact on the thermodynamics of the collapse, allowing the cloud to reach the CMB temperature floor for a metallicity $Z/Z_{odot}=10^{-2}$, which is in agreement with previous work. Moreover, we found that adopting the abundance pattern given by the star SMSS J031300.36-670839.3 the thermodynamics behavior is very similar to simulations with a metallicity of $Z/Z_{odot}=10^{-2}$, due to the high carbon abundance. As long as only metal line cooling is considered, our results support the metallicity threshold proposed by previous works, which will very likely regulate the first episode of fragmentation and potentially determine the masses of the resulting star clusters.
The formation of supermassive stars has generally been studied under the assumption of rapid accretion of pristine metal-free gas. Recently it was found, however, that gas enriched to metallicities up to $Z sim 10^{-3}$ Z$_{odot}$ can also facilitate supermassive star formation, as long as the total mass infall rate onto the protostar remains sufficiently high. We extend the analysis further by examining how the abundance of supermassive star candidate haloes would be affected if all haloes with super-critical infall rates, regardless of metallicity were included. We investigate this scenario by identifying all atomic cooling haloes in the Renaissance simulations with central mass infall rates exceeding a fixed threshold. We find that among these haloes with central mass infall rates above 0.1 M$_{odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ approximately two-thirds of these haloes have metallicities of $Z > 10^{-3}$ Z$_{odot}$. If metal mixing within these haloes is inefficient early in their assembly and pockets of metal-poor gas can remain then the number of haloes hosting supermassive stars can be increased by at least a factor of four. Additionally the centres of these high infall-rate haloes provide ideal environments in which to grow pre-existing black holes. Further research into the (supermassive) star formation dynamics of rapidly collapsing haloes, with inhomogeneous metal distributions, is required to gain more insight into both supermassive star formation in early galaxies as well as early black hole growth.
We present spatially resolved imaging and integral field spectroscopy data for 450 cool giant stars within 1,pc from Sgr,A*. We use the prominent CO bandheads to derive effective temperatures of individual giants. Additionally we present the deepest spectroscopic observation of the Galactic Center so far, probing the number of B9/A0 main sequence stars ($2.2-2.8,M_odot$) in two deep fields. From spectro-photometry we construct a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of the red giant population and fit the observed diagram with model populations to derive the star formation history of the nuclear cluster. We find that (1) the average nuclear star-formation rate dropped from an initial maximum $sim10$,Gyrs ago to a deep minimum 1-2,Gyrs ago and increased again during the last few hundred Myrs, and (2) that roughly 80% of the stellar mass formed more than 5,Gyrs ago; (3) mass estimates within $rm Rsim1,pc$ from Sgr,A* favor a dominant star formation mode with a normal Chabrier/Kroupa initial mass function for the majority of the past star formation in the Galactic Center. The bulk stellar mass seems to have formed under conditions significantly different from the young stellar disks, perhaps because at the time of the formation of the nuclear cluster the massive black hole and its sphere of influence was much smaller than today.
We matched the 1.4 GHz local luminosity functions of star-forming galaxies (SFGs) and active galactic nuclei to the 1.4 GHz differential source counts from $0.25 mumathrm{Jy}$ to 25 Jy using combinations of luminosity and density evolution. We present the most robust and complete local far-infrared (FIR)/radio luminosity correlation to date in a volume-limited sample of $approx 4.3 times 10^3$ nearby SFGs, finding that it is very tight but distinctly sub-linear: $L_mathrm{FIR} propto L_mathrm{1.4,GHz}^{0.85}$. If the local FIR/radio correlation does not evolve, the evolving 1.4 GHz luminosity function of SFGs yields the evolving star-formation rate density (SFRD) $psi (M_odot mathrm{year}^{-1} mathrm{Mpc}^{-3}$) as a function of time since the big bang. The SFRD measured at 1.4 GHz grows rapidly at early times, peaks at cosmic noon when $t approx 3 mathrm{Gyr}$ and $z approx 2$, and subsequently decays with an $e$-folding time scale $tau = 3.2 mathrm{Gyr}$. This evolution is similar to, but somewhat stronger than, SFRD evolution estimated from UV and FIR data.
We present the detailed characterisation of a sample of 56 sources serendipitously detected in ALMA band 7, as part of the ALMA Large Program to INvestigate CII at Early Times (ALPINE) in COSMOS and ECDFS. These sources have been used to derive the total infrared luminosity function (LF) and to estimate the cosmic star formation rate density (SFRD) up to z=6. We have looked for counterparts in all the available multi-wavelength and photometric redshift catalogues, and in deeper near- and mid-IR source lists and maps, to identify optically dark sources with no matches in the public catalogues. Our ALMA blind survey allows us to push further the study of the nature and evolution of dusty galaxies at high-z, identifying luminous and massive sources to redshifts and faint luminosities never probed before by any far-infrared surveys. The ALPINE data are the first ones to sample the faint-end of the infrared LF, showing little evolution from z=2.5 to z=6, and a flat slope up to the highest redshifts. The SFRD obtained by integrating the luminosity function remains almost constant between z=2 and 6, and significantly higher than the optical/UV derivations, showing an important contribution of dusty galaxies and obscured star formation up to high-z. About 14 per cent of the ALPINE serendipitous continuum sources are optically+near-IR dark (six show a counterpart only in the mid-IR and no HST or near-IR identification, while two are detected as [CII] emitters at z=5). The six HST and near-IR dark galaxies with mid-IR counterpart contribute for about 17 per cent of the total SFRD at z=5 and dominate the high-mass end of the stellar mass function at z>3.