No Arabic abstract
We present near-infrared imaging of a sample of 57 relatively large, Northern spiral galaxies with low inclination. After describing the selection criteria and some of the basic properties of the sample, we give a detailed description of the data collection and reduction procedures. The K_s lambda=2.2 micron images cover most of the disk for all galaxies, with a field of view of at least 4.2 arcmin. The spatial resolution is better than an arcsec for most images. We fit bulge and exponential disk components to radial profiles of the light distribution. We then derive the basic parameters of these components, as well as the bulge/disk ratio, and explore correlations of these parameters with several galaxy parameters.
We present optical observations of a sample of 57 spiral galaxies and describe the procedures followed to reduce the data. We have obtained images in the optical B and I broad bands, as well as in H alpha, with moderate spatial resolution and across wide enough fields to image the complete disks of the galaxies. In addition, we observed 55 of our sample galaxies in the R and eight in the V band, and imaged a subset through a dedicated narrow continuum filter for the H alpha line. We describe the data reduction procedures we developed in the course of this work to register, combine and photometrically calibrate each set of images for an individual galaxy. We describe in some detail the procedure used to subtract the continuum emission from our H alpha images. In companion papers, we describe near-infrared imaging of the galaxy sample, and present analyses of disk scale lengths, and of properties of bars, rings, and HII regions in the sample galaxies. The images described here will be made available for use by other researchers through the CDS.
The optical time-domain astronomy has grown rapidly in the past decade but the dynamic infrared sky is rarely explored. Aiming to construct a sample of mid-infrared outburst in nearby galaxies (MIRONG), we have conducted a systematical search of low-redshift ($z<0.35$) SDSS spectroscopic galaxies that have experienced recent MIR flares using their Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) light curves. A total of 137 galaxies have been selected by requiring a brightening amplitude of 0.5 magnitude in at least one WISE band with respect to their quiescent phases. Only a small faction (10.9%) has corresponding optical flares. Except for the four supernova (SNe) in our sample, the MIR luminosity of remaining sources ($L_{rm 4.6mu m}>10^{42}~rm erg~s^{-1}$) are markedly brighter than known SNe and their physical locations are very close to the galactic center (median <0.1). Only four galaxies are radio-loud indicating that synchrotron radiation from relativistic jets could contribute MIR variability. We propose that these MIR outburst are dominated by the dust echoes of transient accretion onto supermassive black holes, such as tidal disruption events (TDEs) and turn-on (changing-look) AGNs. Moreover, the inferred peak MIR luminosity function is generally consistent with the X-ray and optical TDEs at high end albeit with large uncertainties. Our results suggest that a large population of transients have been overlooked by optical surveys, probably due to dust obscuration or intrinsically optical weakness. Thus, a search in the infrared band is crucial for us to obtain a panoramic picture of nuclear outburst. The multiwavength follow-up observations of the MIRONG sample are in progress and will be presented in a series of subsequent papers.
An imaging survey of the {em IRAS} 1-Jy sample of 118 ultraluminous infrared galaxies was conducted at optical (R) and near-infrared (K) wavelengths using the University of Hawaii 2.2m telescope. The methods of observation and data reduction are described. An R and K atlas of the entire sample is presented along with some of the basic astrometric and photometric parameters derived from these images. A more detailed analysis of these data is presented in a companion paper (Veilleux, Kim, & Sanders 2002; astro-ph/0207401).
We investigate the impact of spiral structure on global star formation using a sample of 2226 nearby bright disk galaxies. Examining the relationship between spiral arms, star formation rate (SFR), and stellar mass, we find that arm strength correlates well with the variation of SFR as a function of stellar mass. Arms are stronger above the star-forming galaxy main sequence (MS) and weaker below it: arm strength increases with higher $log,({rm SFR}/{rm SFR}_{rm MS})$, where ${rm SFR}_{rm MS}$ is the SFR along the MS. Likewise, stronger arms are associated with higher specific SFR. We confirm this trend using the optical colors of a larger sample of 4378 disk galaxies, whose position on the blue cloud also depends systematically on spiral arm strength. This link is independent of other galaxy structural parameters. For the subset of galaxies with cold gas measurements, arm strength positively correlates with HI and H$_2$ mass fraction, even after removing the mutual dependence on $log,({rm SFR}/{rm SFR}_{rm MS})$, consistent with the notion that spiral arms are maintained by dynamical cooling provided by gas damping. For a given gas fraction, stronger arms lead to higher $log,({rm SFR}/{rm SFR}_{rm MS})$, resulting in a trend of increasing arm strength with shorter gas depletion time. We suggest a physical picture in which the dissipation process provided by gas damping maintains spiral structure, which, in turn, boosts the star formation efficiency of the gas reservoir.
We present IR and UV photometry for a sample of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). The BCGs are from a heterogeneous but uniformly characterized sample, the Archive of Chandra Cluster Entropy Profile Tables (ACCEPT), of X-ray galaxy clusters from the Chandra X-ray telescope archive with published gas temperature, density, and entropy profiles. We use archival GALEX, Spitzer, and 2MASS observations to assemble spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and colors for BCGs. We find that while the SEDs of some BCGs follow the expectation of red, dust-free old stellar populations, many exhibit signatures of recent star formation in the form of excess UV or mid-IR emission, or both. We establish a mean near-UV to 2MASS K color of 6.59 pm 0.34 for quiescent BCGs. We use this mean color to quantify the UV excess associated with star formation in the active BCGs. We use fits to a template of an evolved stellar population and library of starburst models and mid-IR star formation relations to estimate the obscured star formation rates. Many of the BCGs in X-ray clusters with low central gas entropy exhibit enhanced UV (38%) and mid-IR emission (43%), above that expected from an old stellar population. These excesses are consistent with on-going star formation activity in the BCG, star formation that appears to be enabled by the presence of high density, X-ray emitting gas in the the core of the cluster of galaxies. This hot, X-ray emitting gas may provide the enhanced ambient pressure and some of the fuel to trigger the star formation. This result is consistent with previous works that showed that BCGs in clusters with low central gas entropy host H{alpha} emission-line nebulae and radio sources, while clusters with high central gas entropy exhibit none of these features. UV and mid-IR measurements combined provide a complete picture of unobscured and obscured star formation occurring in these systems.