Extended, old, and round stellar halos appear to be ubiquitous around high-mass dwarf galaxies ($10^{8.5}<M_star/M_odot<10^{9.6}$) in the observed universe. However, it is unlikely that these dwarfs have undergone a sufficient number of minor mergers
to form stellar halos that are composed of predominantly accreted stars. Here, we demonstrate that FIRE-2 (Feedback in Realistic Environments) cosmological zoom-in simulations are capable of producing dwarf galaxies with realistic structure, including both a thick disk and round stellar halo. Crucially, these stellar halos are formed in-situ, largely via the outward migration of disk stars. However, there also exists a large population of non-disky dwarfs in FIRE that lack a well-defined disk/halo and do not resemble the observed dwarf population. These non-disky dwarfs tend to be either more gas poor or to have burstier recent star formation histories than the disky dwarfs, suggesting that star formation feedback may be preventing disk formation. Both classes of dwarfs underscore the power of a galaxys intrinsic shape -- which is a direct quantification of the distribution of the galaxys stellar content -- to interrogate the feedback implementation in simulated galaxies.
The binding energy liberated by the coalescence of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries during galaxy mergers is thought to be responsible for the low density cores often found in bright elliptical galaxies. We use high-resolution $N$-body and Mon
te Carlo techniques to perform single and multi-stage galaxy merger simulations and systematically study the dependence of the central galaxy properties on the binary mass ratio, the slope of the initial density cusps, and the number of mergers experienced. We study both the amount of depleted stellar mass (or ``mass deficit), $M_{rm def}$, and the radial extent of the depleted region, $r_{rm b}$. We find that $r_{rm b}simeq r_{rm SOI}$ and that $M_{rm def}$ varies in the range $0.5$ to $4M_{bullet}$, with $r_{rm SOI}$ the influence radius of the remnant SMBH and $M_{bullet}$ its mass. The coefficients in these relations depend weakly on the binary mass ratio and remain remarkably constant through subsequent mergers. We conclude that the core size and mass deficit do not scale linearly with the number of mergers, making it hard to infer merger histories from observations. On the other hand, we show that both $M_{rm def}$ and $r_{rm b}$ are sensitive to the morphology of the galaxy merger remnant, and that adopting spherical initial conditions, as done in early work, leads to misleading results. Our models reproduce the range of values for $M_{rm def}$ found in most observational work, but span nearly an order of magnitude range around the true ejected stellar mass.
The nanohertz gravitational wave background (GWB) is believed to be dominated by GW emission from supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs). Observations of several dual active galactic nuclei (AGN) strongly suggest a link between AGN and SMBHBs, giv
en that these dual AGN systems will eventually form bound binary pairs. Here we develop an exploratory SMBHB population model based on empirically constrained quasar populations, allowing us to decompose the GWB amplitude into an underlying distribution of SMBH masses, SMBHB number density, and volume enclosing the GWB. Our approach also allows us to self-consistently predict the GWB amplitude and the number of local SMBHB systems. Interestingly, we find the local number density of SMBHBs implied by the common-process signal in the NANOGrav 12.5-yr dataset to be roughly five times larger than previously predicted by other models. We also find that at most $sim 25 %$ of SMBHBs can be associated with quasars. Furthermore, our quasar-based approach predicts $gtrsim 95%$ of the GWB signal comes from $z lesssim 2.5$, and that SMBHBs contributing to the GWB have masses $gtrsim 10^8 M_odot$. We also explore how different empirical galaxy-black hole scaling relations affect the local number density of GW sources, and find that relations predicting more massive black holes decrease the local number density of SMBHBs. Overall, our results point to the important role that a measurement of the GWB will play in directly constraining the cosmic population of SMBHBs, as well as their connections to quasars and galaxy mergers.
We present a search for hyper-compact star clusters in the Milky Way using a combination of Gaia and the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS). Such putative clusters, with sizes of ~1 pc and containing 500-5000 stars, are expected to remain boun
d to intermediate-mass black holes (Mbh~10^3-10^5 M-sun) that may be accreted into the Milky Way halo within dwarf satellites. Using the semi-analytic model SatGen we find an expected ~100 wandering intermediate-mass black holes with if every infalling satellite hosts a black hole. We do not find any such clusters in our search. Our upper limits rule out 100% occupancy, but do not put stringent constraints on the occupation fraction. Of course, we need stronger constraints on the properties of the putative star clusters, including their assumed sizes as well as the fraction of stars that would be compact remnants.
We present the properties of the globular clusters (GCs) and nuclear star clusters (NSCs) of low-mass ($10^{5.5}<M_star<10^{8.5}$ $M_odot$) early-type satellites of Milky Way-like and small group hosts in the Local Volume (LV) using deep, ground-base
d data from the ongoing Exploration of Local VolumE Satellites (ELVES) Survey. This sample of 177 dwarfs significantly increases the statistics for studying the star clusters of dwarfs in low-density environments, offering an important comparison to samples from nearby galaxy clusters. The LV dwarfs exhibit significantly lower nucleation fractions at fixed galaxy mass than dwarfs in nearby clusters. The mass of NSCs of LV dwarfs show a similar scaling of $M_{star,mathrm{NSC}}propto M_{star,mathrm{gal}}^{0.4}$ as that found in clusters but offset to lower NSC masses. To deal with foreground/background contamination in the GC analysis, we employ both a statistical subtraction and Bayesian approach to infer the average GC system properties from all dwarfs simultaneously. We find that the GC occupation fraction and average abundance are both increasing functions of galaxy stellar mass, and the LV dwarfs show significantly lower average GC abundance at fixed galaxy mass than a comparable sample of Virgo dwarfs analyzed in the same way, demonstrating that GC prevalence also shows an important secondary dependence on the dwarfs environment. This result strengthens the connection between GCs and NSCs in low-mass galaxies. We discuss these observations in the context of modern theories of GC and NSC formation, finding that the environmental dependencies can be well-explained by these models.
The structure of a dwarf galaxy is an important probe into the effects of stellar feedback and environment. Using an unprecedented sample of 223 low-mass satellites from the ongoing Exploration of Local VolumE Satellites (ELVES) Survey, we explore th
e structures of dwarf satellites in the mass range $10^{5.5}<M_star<10^{8.5}$M$_odot$. We survey satellites around $80%$ of the massive, $M_K<-22.4$ mag, hosts in the Local Volume. Our sample of dwarf satellites is complete to luminosities of $M_V<-9$ mag and surface brightness $mu_{0,V}<26.5$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$ within at least $sim200$ projected kpc. We separate the satellites into late- and early-type, finding the mass-size relations are very similar between them, to within $sim5%$. This similarity indicates that the quenching and transformation of a late-type dwarf into an early-type involves only very mild size evolution. Considering the distribution of apparent ellipticities, we infer the intrinsic shapes of the early- and late-type samples. Combining with literature samples, we find that both types of dwarfs get thicker at fainter luminosities but early-types are always rounder at fixed luminosity. Finally, we compare the LV satellites with dwarf samples from the cores of the Virgo and Fornax clusters. We find that the cluster satellites show similar scaling relations to the LV early-type dwarfs but are roughly $10%$ larger at fixed mass, which we interpret as being due to tidal heating in the cluster environments. The dwarf structure results presented here are a useful reference for simulations of dwarf galaxy formation and the transformation of dwarf irregulars into spheroidals.
We present the results from an observing campaign to confirm the peculiar motion of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in J0437+2456 first reported in Pesce et al. (2018). Deep observations with the Arecibo Observatory have yielded a detection of neu
tral hydrogen (HI) emission, from which we measure a recession velocity of 4910 km s$^{-1}$ for the galaxy as a whole. We have also obtained near-infrared integral field spectroscopic observations of the galactic nucleus with the Gemini North telescope, yielding spatially resolved stellar and gas kinematics with a central velocity at the innermost radii ($0.1^{prime prime} approx 34$ pc) of 4860 km s$^{-1}$. Both measurements differ significantly from the $sim$4810 km s$^{-1}$ H$_2$O megamaser velocity of the SMBH, supporting the prior indications of a velocity offset between the SMBH and its host galaxy. However, the two measurements also differ significantly from one another, and the galaxy as a whole exhibits a complex velocity structure that implies the system has recently been dynamically disturbed. These results make it clear that the SMBH is not at rest with respect to the systemic velocity of the galaxy, though the specific nature of the mobile SMBH -- i.e., whether it traces an ongoing galaxy merger, a binary black hole system, or a gravitational wave recoil event -- remains unclear.
We increase the sample of ultra diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in lower density environments with characterized globular cluster (GC) populations using new Hubble Space Telescope observations of nine UDGs in group environments. While the bulk of our UDGs ha
ve GC abundances consistent with normal dwarf galaxies, two of these UDGs have excess GC populations. These two UDGs both have GC luminosity functions consistent with higher surface brightness galaxies and cluster UDGs. We then combine our nine objects with previous studies to create a catalog of UDGs with analyzed GC populations that spans a uniquely diverse range of environments. We use this catalog to examine broader trends in the GC populations of low stellar mass galaxies. The highest GC abundances are found in cluster UDGs, but whether cluster UDGs are actually more extreme requires study of many more UDGs in groups. We find a possible positive correlation between GC abundance and stellar mass, and between GC abundance and galaxy size at fixed stellar mass. However, we see no significant stellar-mass galaxy-size relation, over our limited stellar mass range. We consider possible origins of the correlation between GC abundance and galaxy size, including the possibility that these two galaxy properties are both dependent on the galaxy dark matter halo, or that they are related through baryonic processes like internal feedback.
Though smooth, extended spheroidal stellar outskirts have long been observed around nearby dwarf galaxies, it is unclear whether dwarfs generically host an extended stellar halo. We use imaging from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC
-SSP) to measure the shapes of dwarf galaxies out to four effective radii for a sample of dwarfs at 0.005<z<0.2 and 10^7<M_star/M_sun<10^9.6. We find that dwarfs are slightly triaxial, with a <B/A> >~ 0.75 (where the ellipsoid is characterized by three principle semi-axes constrained by C<=B<=A). At M_star>10^8.5 M_sun, the galaxies grow from thick disk-like near their centers towards the spheroidal extreme at four effective radii. We also see that although blue dwarfs are, on average, characterized by thinner discs than red dwarfs, both blue and red dwarfs grow more spheroidal as a function of radius. This relation also holds true for a comparison between field and satellite dwarfs. This uniform trend towards relatively spheroidal shapes as a function of radius is consistent with an in-situ formation mechanism for stellar outskirts around low-mass galaxies, in agreement with proposed models where star formation feedback produces round stellar outskirts around dwarfs.
We study the incidence of nuclear activity in a large sample of massive post-starburst galaxies at z~0.7 selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and identify active galactic nuclei based on radio continuum and optical emission lines. Over our mas
s range of 10^10.6-10^11.5 Msun, the incidence of radio activity is weakly dependent on stellar mass and independent of stellar age, while radio luminosity depends strongly on stellar mass. Optical nuclear activity incidence depends most strongly on the Dn4000 line index, a proxy for stellar age, with an active fraction that is ~ten times higher in the youngest versus oldest post-starburst galaxies. Since a similar trend is seen between age and molecular gas fractions, we argue that, like in local galaxies, the age trend reflects a peak in available fueling rather than feedback from the central black hole on the surrounding galaxy.
