No Arabic abstract
We investigate the relationship between X-ray cooling and star formation in brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). We present an X-ray spectral analysis of the inner regions, 10-40 kpc, of six nearby cool core clusters (z<0.35) observed with Chandra ACIS. This sample is selected on the basis of the high star formation rate (SFR) observed in the BCGs. We restrict our search for cooling gas to regions that are roughly cospatial with the starburst. We fit single- and multi-temperature mkcflow models to constrain the amount of isobarically cooling intracluster medium (ICM). We find that in all clusters, below a threshold temperature ranging between 0.9 and 3 keV, only upper limits can be obtained. In four out of six objects, the upper limits are significantly below the SFR and in two, namely A1835 and A1068, they are less than a tenth of the SFR. Our results suggests that a number of mechanisms conspire to hide the cooling signature in our spectra. In a few systems the lack of a cooling signature may be attributed to a relatively long delay time between the X-ray cooling and the star burst. However, for A1835 and A1068, where the X-ray cooling time is shorter than the timescale of the starburst, a possible explanation is that the region where gas cools out of the X-ray phase extends to very large radii, likely beyond the core of these systems.
We report results of a project to map HCN and HCO+ J = 1-0 emission toward a sample of molecular clouds in the inner Galaxy, all containing dense clumps that are actively engaged in star formation. We compare these two molecular line tracers with millimeter continuum emission and extinction, as inferred from 13CO, as tracers of dense gas in molecular clouds. The fraction of the line luminosity from each tracer that comes from the dense gas, as measured by AV > 8 mag, varies substantially from cloud to cloud. In all cases, a substantial fraction (in most cases, the majority) of the total luminosity arises in gas below the AV > 8 mag threshold and outside the region of strong mm continuum emission. Measurements of the luminosity of HCN toward other galaxies will likely be dominated by such gas at lower surface density. Substantial, even dominant, contributions to the total line luminosity can arise in gas with densities typical of the cloud as a whole (densities about 100 per cubic cm). Defining the dense clump from the HCN or HCO+ emission itself, similarly to previous studies, leads to a wide range of clump properties, with some being considerably larger and less dense than in previous studies. HCN and HCO+ have similar ability to trace dense gas for the clouds in this sample. For the two clouds with low virial parameters, the 13CO is definitely a worse tracer of the dense gas, but for the other four, it is equally good (or bad) at tracing dense gas.
Aims. We investigate the different manifestations of AGN feedback in the evolved, powerful radio source 3C293 and their impact on the molecular gas of its host galaxy, which harbors young star-forming regions and fast outflows of HI and ionized gas. Methods. We study the distribution and kinematics of the molecular gas of 3C293 using high spatial resolution observations of the CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) lines, and the 3 and 1mm continuum taken with the IRAM PdBI. We mapped the molecular gas of 3C293 and compared it with the dust and star-formation images of the host. We searched for signatures of outflow motions in the CO kinematics, and reexamined the evidence of outflowing gas in the HI spectra. We also derived the star formation rate (SFR) and efficiency (SFE) of the host with all available SFR tracers from the literature, and compared them with the SFE of young and evolved radio galaxies and normal star-forming galaxies. Results. The CO(1-0) emission line shows that the molecular gas in 3C293 is distributed along a massive (2.2E10 Msun) warped disk with diameter of 21 kpc that rotates around the AGN. Our data show that the dust and the star formation are clearly associated with the CO disk. The CO(2-1) emission is located in the inner 7 kpc (diameter) region around the AGN, coincident with the inner part of the CO(1-0) disk. Both the CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) spectra reveal the presence of an absorber against the central regions of 3C293 that is associated with the disk. We do not detect any fast (>500 km/s) outflow motions in the cold molecular gas. The host of 3C293 shows an SFE consistent with the Kennicutt-Schmidt law. The apparently low SFE of evolved radio galaxies may be caused by an underestimation of the SFR and/or an overestimation of the molecular gas densities in these sources. We find no signatures of AGN feedback in the molecular gas of 3C293.
The processes taking place in the outermost reaches of spiral disks (the proto-disk) are intimately connected to the build-up of mass and angular momentum in galaxies. The thinness of spiral disks suggests that the activity is mostly quiescent and presumably this region is fed by cool flows coming into the halo from the intergalactic medium. While there is abundant evidence for the presence of a circumgalactic medium (CGM) around disk galaxies as traced by quasar absorption lines, it has been very difficult to connect this material to the outer gas disk. This has been a very difficult transition region to explore because baryon tracers are hard to observe. In particular, HI disks have been argued to truncate at a critical column density N(H) $approx 3times 10^{19}$ cm$^{-2}$ at 30 kpc for an L* galaxy where the gas is vulnerable to the external ionizing background. But new deep observations of nearby L* spirals (e.g. Milky Way, NGC 2997) suggest that HI disks may extend much further than recognised to date, up to 60 kpc at N(H) $approx 10^{18}$ cm$^{-2}$. Motivated by these observations, here we show that a clumpy outer disk of dense clouds or cloudlets is potentially detectable to much larger radii and lower HI column densities than previously discussed. This extended proto-disk component is likely to explain some of the MgII forest seen in quasar spectra as judged from absorption-line column densities and kinematics. We fully anticipate that the armada of new radio facilities and planned HI surveys coming online will detect this extreme outer disk (scree) material. We also propose a variant on the successful Dragonfly technique to go after the very weak H$alpha$ signals expected in the proto-disk region.
We have studied stellar and gaseous kinematics as well as stellar population properties in the center of the early-type barred galaxy NGC 4245 by means of integral-field spectroscopy. We have found a chemically distinct compact core, more metal-rich by a factor of 2.5 than the bulge, and a ring of young stars with the radius of 300 pc. Current star formation proceeds in this ring; its location corresponds to the inner Lindblad resonance of the large-scale bar. The mean age of stars in the chemically distinct core is significantly younger than the estimate by Sarzi et al. (2005) for the very center, within R=0.25, made with the HST spectroscopy data. We conclude that the `chemically distinct core is in fact an ancient ultra-compact star forming ring with radius less than 100 pc which marks perhaps the past position of the inner Lindblad resonance. In general, the pattern of star formation history in the center of this early-type gas-poor galaxy confirms the predictions of dynamical models for the secular evolution of a stellar-gaseous disk under the influence of a bar.
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.