Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userFlattened structures of dwarf satellites around massive host galaxies in the MATLAS low-to-moderate density fields
73
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
It was first observed in the 1970s that the dwarf galaxies surrounding our Milky Way, so-called satellites, appear to be arranged in a thin, vast plane. Similar discoveries have been made around additional galaxies in the local Universe such as Andromeda, Centaurus A, and potentially M83. In the specific cases with available kinematic data, the dwarf satellites also appear to preferentially co-orbit their massive host galaxy. Planes of satellites are rare in the lambda cold dark matter ($Lambda$CDM) paradigm, although they may be a natural consequence of projection effects. Such a phase-space correlation, however, remains difficult to explain. In this work we analyzed the 2D spatial distribution of 2210 dwarf galaxies around early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the low-to-medium density fields of the Mass Assembly of early-Type GaLAxies with their fine Structures (MATLAS) survey. Under the assumption that the dwarfs are satellite members of the central massive ETG, we identified flattened structures using both a variation in the Hough transform and total least square (TLS) fitting. In 119 satellite systems, we find 31 statistically significant flattened dwarf structures using a combination of both methods with subsequent Monte Carlo (MC) simulations with random data. The vast majority of these dwarf structures lie within the estimated virial radii of the massive host. The major axes of these systems are aligned better than 30{deg} with the estimated orientation of the large-scale structure in nine (50%) cases. Additional distance measurements and future kinematic studies will be required to confirm the planar nature of these structures and to determine if they are corotating systems.
rate research
Read More
We present the photometric properties of 2210 newly identified dwarf galaxy candidates in the MATLAS fields. The Mass Assembly of early Type gaLAxies with their fine Structures (MATLAS) deep imaging survey mapped $sim$142 deg$^2$ of the sky around nearby isolated early type galaxies using MegaCam on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, reaching surface brightnesses of $sim$ 28.5 - 29 in the g-band. The dwarf candidates were identified through a direct visual inspection of the images and by visually cleaning a sample selected using a partially automated approach, and were morphologically classified at the time of identification. Approximately 75% of our candidates are dEs, indicating that a large number of early type dwarfs also populate low density environments, and 23.2% are nucleated. Distances were determined for 13.5% of our sample using pre-existing $z_{spec}$ measurements and HI detections. We confirm the dwarf nature for 99% of this sub-sample based on a magnitude cut $M_g$ = -18. Additionally, most of these ($sim$90%) have relative velocities suggesting that they form a satellite population around nearby massive galaxies rather than an isolated field sample. Assuming that the candidates over the whole survey are satellites of the nearby galaxies, we demonstrate that the MATLAS dwarfs follow the same scaling relations as dwarfs in the Local Group as well as the Virgo and Fornax clusters. We also find that the nucleated fraction increases with $M_g$, and find evidence of a morphology-density relation for dwarfs around isolated massive galaxies.
Ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) are very low-surface brightness galaxies with large effective radii. Spectroscopic measurements of a few UDGs have revealed a low dark matter content, based on the internal motion of stars or globular clusters (GCs). This is in contrast to the large number of GCs found for these systems, from which it would be expected to correspond to a large dark matter halo mass. Here we present Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera Survey observations for the UDG MATLAS-2019 in the NGC5846 group of galaxies. Using images in the $F606W$ and $F814W$ filters, we trace the GC population two magnitudes below the peak of the GC luminosity function. Employing Bayesian considerations, we find a total of 37$pm$5 GCs associated with the dwarf, which yields a large GC specific frequency of $S_N=84pm 12$. Due to the superior image quality of the HST, we are able to resolve the GCs and measure their sizes, which are consistent with the sizes of GCs from Local Group galaxies. Using the linear relation between the total mass of a galaxy and the total mass of GCs we derive a halo mass of $1.3pm0.2times10^{11}$ M$_odot$, corresponding to a mass-to-light ratio of over 1000. This suggests that either this UDG has an overly massive dark matter halo for its stellar mass, compared to other dwarfs -- though not as massive as the Milky Way -- or that the linear relation between the number of GCs and the dark matter halo mass breaks down for UDGs like MATLAS-2019. The high abundance of GCs, together with the small uncertainties, make MATLAS-2019 one of the most extreme UDGs, which likely sets an upper limit of the number of GCs for such objects.
We present a photometric study of the dwarf galaxy population in the low to moderate density environments of the MATLAS (Mass Assembly of early-Type gaLAxies with their fine Structures) deep imaging survey. The sample consists of 2210 dwarfs, including 508 nucleated. We define a nucleus as a compact source that is close to the galaxy photocentre (within 0.5 $R_e$) which is also the brightest such source within the galaxys effective radius. The morphological analysis is performed using a 2D surface brightness profile modelling on the g-band images of both the galaxies and nuclei. Our study reveals that, for similar luminosities, the MATLAS dwarfs show ranges in the distribution of structural properties comparable to cluster (Virgo and Fornax) dwarfs and a range of sizes comparable to the Local Group and Local Volume dwarfs. Colour measurements using the r- and i-band images indicate that the dwarfs in low and moderate density environments are as red as cluster dwarfs on average. The observed similarities between dwarf ellipticals in vastly different environments imply that dEs are not uniquely the product of morphological transformation due to ram-pressure stripping and galaxy harassment in high density environments. We measure that the dwarf nuclei are located predominantly in massive, bright and round dwarfs and observe fewer nuclei in dwarfs with a faint centre and a small size. The colour of the galaxy nucleus shows no clear relation to the colour of the dwarf, in agreement with the migration and wet migration nucleus formation scenarios. The catalogues of the MATLAS dwarfs photometric and structural properties are provided.
Using HST, we identify circumnuclear ($100$-$500$ pc scale) structures in nine new H$_2$O megamaser host galaxies to understand the flow of matter from kpc-scale galactic structures down to the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at galactic centers. We double the sample analyzed in a similar way by Greene et al. (2013) and consider the properties of the combined sample of 18 sources. We find that disk-like structure is virtually ubiquitous when we can resolve $<200$ pc scales, in support of the notion that non-axisymmetries on these scales are a necessary condition for SMBH fueling. We perform an analysis of the orientation of our identified nuclear regions and compare it with the orientation of megamaser disks and the kpc-scale disks of the hosts. We find marginal evidence that the disk-like nuclear structures show increasing misalignment from the kpc-scale host galaxy disk as the scale of the structure decreases. In turn, we find that the orientation of both the $sim100$ pc scale nuclear structures and their host galaxy large-scale disks is consistent with random with respect to the orientation of their respective megamaser disks.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
