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Register a new userNear-Infrared Spectroscopy of 0.4<z<1.0 CFRS Galaxies: Oxygen Abundances, SFRs and Dust
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C. Maier
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Using new J-band VLT-ISAAC and Keck-NIRSPEC spectroscopy, we have measured Halpha and [NII] line fluxes for 0.47<z<0.92 CFRS galaxies which have [OII], Hbeta and [OIII]a line fluxes available from optical spectroscopy, to investigate how the properties of the star forming gas in galaxies evolve with redshift. We derive the extinction and oxygen abundances for the sample using a method based on a set of ionisation parameter and oxygen abundance diagnostics, simultaneously fitting the [OII], Hbeta,[OIII], Halpha, and [NII] line fluxes. The individual reddening measurements allow us to accurately correct the Halpha-based star formation rate (SFR) estimates for extinction. Our most salient conclusions are: a) in all 30 CFRS galaxies the source of gas ionisation is not due to AGN activity; b) we find a range of 0<AV<3, suggesting that it is important to determine the extinction for every single galaxy in order to reliably measure SFRs and oxygen abundances in high redshift galaxies; c) high values of [NII]/Halpha >0.1 for most (but not all) of the CFRS galaxies indicate that they lie on the high-metallicity branch of the R23 calibration; d) about one third of the 0.47<z<0.92 CFRS galaxies in our sample have lower metallicities than local galaxies with similar luminosities and star formation rates; e) comparison with a chemical evolution model indicates that these low metallicity galaxies are unlikely to be the progenitors of metal-poor dwarf galaxies at z~0.
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We report VLT-ISAAC and Keck-NIRSPEC near-infrared spectroscopy for a sample of 30 0.47<z<0.92 CFRS galaxies and five [OII]-selected, M_B,AB<-21.5, z~1.4 galaxies. We have measured Halpha and [NII] line fluxes for the CFRS galaxies which have [OII], Hbeta and [OIII] line fluxes available from optical spectroscopy. For the z~1.4 objects we measured Hbeta and [OIII] emission line fluxes from J-band spectra, and Halpha line fluxes plus upper limits for [NII] fluxes from H-band spectra. We derive the extinction and oxygen abundances for the sample using a method based on a set of ionisation parameter and oxygen abundance diagnostics, simultaneously fitting the [OII], Hbeta, [OIII], Halpha and [NII] line fluxes. Our most salient conclusions are: a) the source of gas ionisation in the 30 CFRS and in all z~1.4 galaxies is not due to AGN activity; b) about one third of the 0.47<z<0.92 CFRS galaxies in our sample have substantially lower metallicities than local galaxies with similar luminosities and star formation rates; c) comparison with a chemical evolution model indicates that these low metallicity galaxies are unlikely to be the progenitors of metal-poor dwarf galaxies at z~0, but more likely the progenitors of massive spirals; d) the z~1.4 galaxies are characterized by the high [OIII]/[OII] line ratios, low extinction and low metallicity that are typical of lower luminosity CADIS galaxies at 0.4<z<0.7, and of more luminous Lyman Break Galaxies at z~3.1, but not seen in CFRS galaxies at 0.4<z<1.0; e) the properties of the z~1.4 galaxies suggest that the period of rapid chemical evolution takes place progressively in lower mass systems as the universe ages, and thus provides further support for a downsizing picture of galaxy formation, at least from z~1.4 to today.
[Abridged] We present the results of new near-IR spectroscopic observations of passive galaxies at z>1.4 in a concentration of BzK-selected galaxies in the COSMOS field. The observations have been conducted with Subaru/MOIRCS, and have resulted in absorption lines and/or continuum detection for 18 out of 34 objects. This allows us to measure spectroscopic redshifts for a sample almost complete to K(AB)=21. COSMOS photometric redshifts are found in fair agreement overall with the spectroscopic redshifts, with a standard deviation of ~0.05; however, ~30% of objects have photometric redshifts systematically underestimated by up to ~25%. We show that these systematic offsets in photometric redshifts can be removed by using these objects as a training set. All galaxies fall in four distinct redshift spikes at z=1.43, 1.53, 1.67 and 1.82, with this latter one including 7 galaxies. SED fits to broad-band fluxes indicate stellar masses in the range of ~4-40x10^10Msun and that star formation was quenched ~1 Gyr before the cosmic epoch at which they are observed. The spectra of several individual galaxies have allowed us to measure their Hdelta_F and Dn4000 indices, which confirms their identification as passive galaxies, as does a composite spectrum resulting from the coaddition of 17 individual spectra. The effective radii of the galaxies have been measured on the HST/ACS F814W image, confirming the coexistence at these redshifts of passive galaxies which are substantially more compact than their local counterparts with others that follow the local size-stellar mass relation. For the galaxy with best S/N spectrum we were able to measure a velocity dispersion of 270+/-105 km/s, indicating that this galaxy lies closely on the virial relation given its stellar mass and effective radius.
(Abridged) We present new K-band spectroscopy for a sample of 48 starburst galaxies, obtained using UKIRT in Hawaii. This constitutes a fair sample of the most common types of starburst galaxies found in the nearby Universe. The variety of near infrared spectral features shown by these galaxies implies different bursts characteristics, which suggests that we survey galaxies with different star formation histories or at different stages of their burst evolution. Using synthetic starburst models, we conclude that the best ensemble of parameters which describe starburst galaxies in the nearby universe are a constant rate of star formation, a Salpeter IMF with an upper mass cutoff equal to 30 solar mass and bursts ages between 10 Myr and 1 Gyr. The model is fully consistent with the differences observed in the optical and FIR between the different types of starbursts. It suggests that HII galaxies have younger bursts and lower metallicities than SBNGs, while LIRGs have younger bursts but higher metallicities. Our observations suggest that the starburst phenomenon must be a sustained or self--sustained phenomenon: either star formation is continuous in time or multiple bursts happen in sequence over a relatively long period of time. The generality of our observations implies that this is a characteristic of starburst galaxies in the nearby Universe.
Results from near-infrared 1.5 - 2.5 micron long-slit spectroscopy of 14 nearby Seyfert galaxies are presented.
We present Keck-MOSFIRE H and K spectra for a sample of 24 candidate quiescent galaxies (QGs) at 3<z<4, identified from UVJ colors and photometric redshifts in the ZFOURGE and 3DHST surveys. We obtain spectroscopic redshifts for half of the sample, using absorption or emission lines, and confirm the high accuracy of the photometric redshifts with a median error of 1.2%. Two galaxies turn out to be dusty objects at lower redshifts (z<2.5), and are the only two detected in the sub-mm with ALMA. High equivalent-width [OIII] was observed in two galaxies, contributing up to 30% of the K-band flux and mimicking the colors of an old stellar population. This implies a failure rate of only 20% for the UVJ selection at these redshifts. Balmer absorption was identified in 4 of the brighest galaxies, confirming the absence of OB stars. Modeling all QGs with a wide range of star-formation histories, we find sSFR a factor of 10 below the main sequence (MS) for all but one galaxy, and less than 0.01 Gyr$^{-1}$ for half of the sample. This is consistent with the H$beta$ and [OII] luminosities, and the ALMA non-detections. We then find that these QGs have quenched on average 300 Myr before observation, between z=3.5 and 5, and that they formed at z~5.5 with a mean SFR~300 Msun/yr. Considering an alternative selection of QGs based solely on the sSFR from SED modeling, we find that galaxies a factor 10 below the MS are 40% more numerous than UVJ-quiescent galaxies, implying that the UVJ selection is pure but incomplete. Current models fail at reproducing our observations and underestimate either the number density of QGs by more than an order of magnitude or the duration of their quiescence by a factor two. Overall, these results confirm the existence of an unexpected population of QGs at z>3, and offer the first insights on their formation history. [abridged]
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