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Register a new userSerendipitous discovery of a massive cD galaxy at z=1.096: Implications for the early formation and late evolution of cD galaxies
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We have made a serendipitous discovery of a massive cD galaxy at z=1.096 in a candidate rich cluster in the HUDF area of GOODS-South. This brightest cluster galaxy is the most distant cD galaxy confirmed to date. Ultra-deep HST/WFC3 images reveal an extended envelope starting from ~10 kpc and reaching ~70 kpc in radius along the semi-major axis. The spectral energy distributions indicate that both its inner component and outer envelope are composed of an old, passively-evolving stellar population. The cD galaxy lies on the same mass-size relation as the bulk of quiescent galaxies at similar redshifts. The cD galaxy has a higher stellar mass surface density but a similar velocity dispersion to those of more-massive, nearby cDs. If the cD galaxy is one of the progenitors of todays more massive cDs, its size and stellar mass have had to increase on average by factors of $3.4pm1.1$ and $3.3pm1.3$ over the past ~8 Gyrs, respectively. Such increases in size and stellar mass without being accompanied by significant increases in velocity dispersion are consistent with evolutionary scenarios driven by both major and minor dry mergers. If such cD envelopes originate from dry mergers, our discovery of even one example proves that some BCGs entered the dry merger phase at epochs earlier than z=1. Our data match theoretical models which predict that the continuance of dry mergers at z<1 can result in structures similar to those of massive cD galaxies seen today. Moreover, our discovery is a surprise given that the extreme depth of the HUDF is essential to reveal such an extended cD envelope at z>1 and, yet, the HUDF covers only a minuscule region of sky. Adding that cDs are rare, Our serendipitous discovery hints that such cDs may be more common than expected. [Abridged]
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We present N-body simulations of groups of galaxies with a number of very different initial conditions. These include spherical isotropic, nonspherical anisotropic collapses and virialised spherical systems. In all cases but one the merging instability leads to the formation of a giant central galaxy in the center of the group. The initial conditions of the exception are such that no galaxies are present in the central part of the group. Thus some central seed of material is necessary to trigger the formation of a giant central galaxy. We concentrate on the properties of these giant central galaxies. Spherical virialised systems give rise to relatively round and isotropic systems, while aspherical initial conditions give rise to triaxial objects with anisotropic velocity dispersion tensors. In the latter cases the orientation of the resulting central galaxy is well correlated with that of the initial cluster. We compare the projected properties of the objects formed with the properties of real brightest cluster member galaxies. The surface density profiles are in good agreement with the observed surface brightness profiles. In the case of extended virialised groups the projected properties of the giant central galaxy are the same as the properties of cD galaxies. These include a halo of luminous material and a nearly flat velocity dispersion profile.
The first generation of stars were born a few hundred million years after the big bang. These stars synthesized elements heavier than H and He, that are later expelled into the interstellar medium, initiating the rise of metals. Within this enriched medium, the first dust grains formed. This event is cosmological crucial for molecule formation as dust plays a major role by cooling low-metallicity star-forming clouds which can fragment to create lower mass stars. Collecting information on these first dust grains is difficult because of the negative alliance of large distances and low dust masses. We combine the observational information from galaxies at redshifts 5 < z < 10 to constrain their dust emission and theoretically understand the first evolutionary phases of the dust cycle. Spectral energy distributions (SEDs) are fitted with CIGALE and the physical parameters and their evolution are modelled. From this SED fitting, we build a dust emission template for this population of galaxies in the epoch of reionization. Our new models explain why some early galaxies are observed and others are not. We follow in time the formation of the first grains by supernovae later destroyed by other supernova blasts and expelled in the circumgalactic and intergalactic media. We have found evidence for the first dust grains formed in the universe. But, above all, this letter underlines the need to collect more data and to develop new facilities to further constrain the dust cycle in galaxies in the epoch of reionization.
[ABRIDGED] We aim to provide a holistic view on the typical size and kinematic evolution of massive early-type galaxies (ETGs), that encompasses their high-$z$ star-forming progenitors, their high-$z$ quiescent counterparts, and their configurations in the local Universe. Our investigation covers the main processes playing a relevant role in the cosmic evolution of ETGs. Specifically, their early fast evolution comprises: biased collapse of the low angular momentum gaseous baryons located in the inner regions of the host dark matter halo; cooling, fragmentation, and infall of the gas down to the radius set by the centrifugal barrier; further rapid compaction via clump/gas migration toward the galaxy center, where strong heavily dust-enshrouded star-formation takes place and most of the stellar mass is accumulated; ejection of substantial gas amount from the inner regions by feedback processes, which causes a dramatic puffing up of the stellar component. In the late slow evolution, passive aging of stellar populations and mass additions by dry merger events occur. We describe these processes relying on prescriptions inspired by basic physical arguments and by numerical simulations, to derive new analytical estimates of the relevant sizes, timescales, and kinematic properties for individual galaxies along their evolution. Then we obtain quantitative results as a function of galaxy mass and redshift, and compare them to recent observational constraints on half-light size $R_e$, on the ratio $v/sigma$ between rotation velocity and velocity dispersion (for gas and stars) and on the specific angular momentum $j_star$ of the stellar component; we find good consistency with the available multi-band data in average values and dispersion, both for local ETGs and for their $zsim 1-2$ star-forming and quiescent progenitors.
We use N-body/hydrodynamic simulations to study the evolution of the spin of a Milky Way-like galaxy through interactions. We perform a controlled experiment of co-planner galaxy-galaxy encounters and study the evolution of disk spins of interacting galaxies. Specifically, we consider the cases where the late-type target galaxy encounters an equally massive companion galaxy, which has either a late or an early-type morphology, with the closest approach distance of about 50 kpc, in prograde or retrograde sense. By examining the time change of the circular velocity of the disk material of the target galaxy from each case, we find that the target galaxy tends to lose the spin through prograde collisions but hardly through retrograde collisions, regardless of the companion galaxy type. The decrease of the spin results mainly from the deflection of the orbit of the disk material by tidal disruption. Although there is some disk material which gains the circular velocity through hydrodynamic as well as gravitational interactions or by transferring material from the companion galaxy, it turns out that the amount of the material is generally insufficient to increase the overall galactic spin under the conditions we set. It is found that the spin angular momentum of the target galaxy disk decreases by 15 - 20% after a prograde collision. We conclude that the accumulated effects of galaxy-galaxy interactions will play an important role in determining the total angular momentum of late-type galaxies at current stage.
We present the results of a new search for galaxies at redshift z ~ 9 in the first two Hubble Frontier Fields with completed HST WFC3/IR and ACS imaging. To ensure robust photometric redshift solutions, and to minimize incompleteness, we confine our search to objects with H_{160} < 28.6 (AB mag), consider only image regions with an rms noise sigma_{160} > 30 mag (within a 0.5-arcsec diameter aperture), and insist on detections in both H_{160} and J_{140}. The result is a survey covering an effective area (after accounting for magnification) of 10.9 sq. arcmin, which yields 12 galaxies at 8.4 < z < 9.5. Within the Abell-2744 cluster and parallel fields we confirm the three brightest objects reported by Ishigaki et al. (2014), but recover only one of the four z > 8.4 sources reported by Zheng et al. (2014). In the MACSJ0416.1-240 cluster field we report five objects, and explain why each of these eluded detection or classification as z ~ 9 galaxies in the published searches of the shallower CLASH data. Finally, we uncover four z ~ 9 galaxies from the previously unsearched MACSJ0416.1-240 parallel field. Based on the published magnification maps we find that only one of these 12 galaxies is likely boosted by more than a factor of two by gravitational lensing. Consequently we are able to perform a fairly straightforward reanalysis of the normalization of the z ~ 9 UV galaxy luminosity function as explored previously in the HUDF12 programme. We conclude that the new data strengthen the evidence for a continued smooth decline in UV luminosity density (and hence star-formation rate density) from z ~ 8 to z ~ 9, contrary to recent reports of a marked drop-off at these redshifts. This provides further support for the scenario in which early galaxy evolution is sufficiently extended to explain cosmic reionization.
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