The star formation history of redshift z~2 galaxies:the role of the infrared prior

We build a sample of 298 spectroscopically-confirmed galaxies at redshift z~2,selected in the z850-band from the GOODS-MUSIC catalog.By utilizing the rest frame 8μm luminosity as a proxy of the star formation rate(SFR),we check the accuracy of the standard SED-fitting technique,finding it is not accurate enough to provide reliable estimates of the physical parameters of galaxies.We then develop a new SED-fitting method that includes the IR luminosity as a prior and a generalized Calzetti law with a variable RV.Then we exploit the new method to re-analyze our galaxy sample,and to robustly determine SFRs,stellar masses and ages.We find that there is a general trend of increasing attenuation with the SFR.Moreover,we find that the SFRs range between a few to 103M yr 1,the masses from 109to 4×1011M,and the ages from a few tens of Myr to more than 1 Gyr.We discuss how individual age measurements of highly attenuated objects indicate that dust must have formed within a few tens of Myr and already been copious at≤100 Myr.In addition,we find that low luminosity galaxies harbor,on average,significantly older stellar populations and are also less massive than brighter ones;we discuss how these findings and the well known‘downsizing’scenario are consistent in a framework where less massive galaxies form first,but their star formation lasts longer.Finally,we find that the near-IR attenuation is not scarce for luminous objects,contrary to what is customarily assumed;we discuss how this affects the interpretation of the observed M/L ratios.     

A sample of metal-poor galaxies identified from the LAMOST spectral survey

We present a sample of 48 metal-poor galaxies at z 0.14 selected from 92 510 galaxies in the LAMOST survey. These galaxies are identified by their detection of the auroral emission line[OⅢ]λ4363 above the 3σ level, which allows a direct measurement of electron temperature and oxygen abundance. The emission line fluxes are corrected for internal dust extinction using the Balmer decrement method. With electron temperature derived from [OⅢ]λλ4959, 5007/[OⅢ]λ4363 and electron density from [SⅡ]λ6731/[SⅡ]λ6717, we obtain the oxygen abundances in our sample which range from 12 + log(O/H) = 7.63(0.09 Z_⊙) to 8.46(0.6 Z_⊙). We find an extremely metal-poor galaxy with 12 + log(O/H) = 7.63 ± 0.01. With multiband photometric data from FUV to NIR and Hαmeasurements, we also determine the stellar masses and star formation rates, based on the spectral energy distribution fitting and Hα luminosity, respectively. We find that our galaxies have low and intermediate stellar masses with 6.39 ≤ log(M/M_⊙) ≤ 9.27, and high star formation rates(SFRs) with-2.18 ≤ log(SFR/M_⊙yr~(-1)) ≤ 1.95. We also find that the metallicities of our galaxies are consistent with the local T_e-based mass–metallicity relation, while the scatter is about 0.28 dex. Additionally,assuming the coefficient of α = 0.66, we find most of our galaxies follow the local mass–metallicity–SFR relation, but a scatter of about 0.24 dex exists, suggesting the mass–metallicity relation is weakly dependent on SFR for those metal-poor galaxies.     

An empirical model to form and evolve galaxies in dark matter halos

Based on the star formation histories of galaxies in halos with different masses, we develop an empirical model to grow galaxies in dark matter halos. This model has very few ingredients, any of which can be associated with observational data and thus be efficiently assessed. By applying this model to a very high resolution cosmological N-body simulation, we predict a number of galaxy properties that are a very good match to relevant observational data. Namely, for both centrals and satellites, the galaxy stellar mass functions up to redshift z ≈ 4 and the conditional stellar mass functions in the local universe are in good agreement with observations. In addition, the two point correlation function is well predicted in the different stellar mass ranges explored by our model. Furthermore, after applying stellar population synthesis models to our stellar composition as a function of redshift, we find that the luminosity functions in the 0.1_u,0.1_g,0.1_r,0.1_i and 0.1_z bands agree quite well with the SDSS observational results down to an absolute magnitude at about –17.0. The SDSS conditional luminosity function itself is predicted well. Finally, the cold gas is derived from the star formation rate to predict the HI gas mass within each mock galaxy. We find a remarkably good match to observed HI-to-stellar mass ratios. These features ensure that such galaxy/gas catalogs can be used to generate reliable mock redshift surveys.     

The Difference between the α-disks of Seyfert 1 Galaxiesand Quasars

In a previous paper, it was suggested that contamination of the nuclear luminosity by the host galaxy plays an important role in determining the parameters of the standard a disk of AGNs. Using the nuclear absolute B band magnitude instead of the total absolute B band magnitude, we have recalculated the central black hole masses, accretion rates and disk inclinations for 20 Seyfert 1 galaxies and 17 Palomar-Green (PG) quasars. It is found that a small value of a is needed for the Seyfert 1 galaxies than for the PG quasars. This difference in a possibly leads to the different properties of Seyfert 1 galaxies and quasars. Furthermore, we find most of the objects in this sample are not accreting at super-Eddington rates if we adopt the nuclear optical luminosity in our calculation.     

FUV and NIR size of the HI selected low surface brightness galaxies

How low surface brightness galaxies(LSBGs)form stars and assemble stellar mass is one of the most important questions related to understanding the LSBG population.We select a sample of 381 HI bright LSBGs with both far ultraviolet(FUV)and near infrared(NIR)observations to investigate the star formation rate(SFR)and stellar mass scales,and the growth mode.We measure the FUV and NIR radii of our sample,which represent the star-forming and stellar mass distribution scales respectively.We also compare the FUV and H band radius-stellar mass relation with archival data,to identify the SFR and stellar mass structure difference between the LSBG population and other galaxies.Since galaxy HI mass has a tight correlation with the HI radius,we can also compare the HI and FUV radii to understand the distribution of HI gas and star formation activities.Our results show that most of the HI selected LSBGs have extended star formation structure.The stellar mass distribution of LSBGs may have a similar structure to disk galaxies at the same stellar mass bins,but the star-forming activity of LSBGs happens at a larger radius than the high surface density galaxies,which may help to identify the LSBG sample from the wide-field deep u band image survey.The HI is also distributed at larger radii,implying a steeper(or not)Kennicutt-Schmidt relation for LSBGs.     

Growth of Black Holes and Their Host Spheroids in （Sub）mm-loud High-Redshift QSOs

We study the growth of black holes and stellar population in spheroids at high redshift using several （sub）mm-loud QSO samples. Applying the same criteria established in an earlier work, we find that, similar to IR QSOs at low redshift, the far-infrared emission of these （sub）mm-loud QSOs mainly originates from dust heated by starbursts. By combining low-z IR QSOs and high-z （sub）mm-loud QSOs, we find a trend that the star formation rate （M＊） increases with the accretion rate （Mace）. We compare the values of M＊/Macc for submm emitting galaxies （SMGs）, far-infrared ultraluminous/hypeduminous QSOs and typical QSOs, and construct a likely evolution scenario for these objects. The （sub）mm-loud QSO transition phase has both high Macc and M＊ and hence is important for establishing the correlation between the masses of black holes and spheroids.     

Clustering Property of Wolf-Rayet Galaxies in the SDSS

We have analysed, for the first time, the clustering properties of Wolf-Rayet (W-R) galaxies, using a large sample of 846 W-R galaxies selected from the Data Release 4 (DR4) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We compute the cross-correlation function between W- R galaxies and a reference sample of galaxies drawn from the DR4. We compare the function to the results for control samples of non-W-R star-forming galaxies that are matched closely in redshift, luminosity, concentration, 4000-A break strength and specific star formation rate (SSFR). On scales larger than a few Mpc, W-R galaxies have almost the same clustering amplitude as the control samples, indicating that W-R galaxies and non-W-R control galax- ies populate dark matter haloes of similar masses. On scales between 0.1-1 h-1 Mpc, W-R galaxies are less clustered than the control samples, and the size of the difference depends on the SSFR. Based on both observational and theoretical considerations, we speculate that this negative bias can be interpreted by W-R galaxies residing preferentially at the centers of their dark matter haloes. We examine the distribution of W-R galaxies more closely using the SDSS galaxy group catalogue of Yang et al., and find that ～82% of our W-R galaxies are the central galaxies of groups, compared to ～74% for the corresponding control galaxies. We find that W-R galaxies are hosted, on average, by dark matter haloes of masses of 1012,3 M☉, compared to 1012,1 M? For centrally-located W-R galaxies and 1012,7 M☉ For satellite ones. We would like to point out that this finding, which provides a direct observational support to our conjecture, is really very crude due to the small number of W-R galaxies and the incom- pleteness of the group catalogue, and needs more work in future with larger samples.     

Star formation properties of galaxy cluster A1767

Abell 1767 is a dynamically relaxed, c D cluster of galaxies with a redshift of 0.0703. Among 250 spectroscopically confirmed member galaxies within a projected radius of 2.5r200, 243 galaxies( Digital Sky Survey. Based on this ～97%) are spectroscopically covered by the Sloanhomogeneous spectral sample, the stellar evolutionary synthesis code STARLIGHT is applied to investigate the stellar populations and star formation histories of galaxies in this cluster. The star formation properties of galaxies, such as mean stellar ages, metallicities, stellar masses, and star formation rates, are presented as functions of local galaxy density. A strong environmental effect is found such that massive galaxies in the high-density core region of the cluster tend to have higher metallicities, older mean stellar ages, and lower specific star formation rates(SSFRs), and their recent star formation activities have been remarkably suppressed. In addition, the correlations of the metallicity and SSFR with stellar mass are confirmed.     

Galaxy properties derived with spectral energy distribution fitting in the Hawaii-Hubble Deep Field-North

We compile multi-wavelength data from ultraviolet to infrared(IR) bands as well as redshift and source-type information, for a large sample of 178 341 sources in the Hawaii-Hubble Deep Field-North field. A total of 145 635 sources among the full sample are classified/treated as galaxies and have redshift information available. We derive physical properties for these sources utilizing the spectral energy distribution fitting code CIGALE that is based on Bayesian analysis. Through various consistency and robustness checks, we find that our stellar-mass and star-formation rate(SFR) estimates are reliable, which is mainly due to two facts. Firstly, we adopt the most up-to-date and accurate redshifts and point spread functionmatched photometry; and secondly, we make sensible parameter choices with the CIGALE code and take into account the influences of mid-IR/far-IR data, star-formation history models, and AGN contribution. We release our catalog of galaxy properties publicly(including, e.g., redshift, stellar mass, SFR, age, metallicity, dust attenuation). It is the largest of its kind in this field and should facilitate future relevant studies on the formation and evolution of galaxies.     

Neutrino luminosity of stars with different masses

Neutrinos play an important role in stellar evolution. They are produced by nuclear reactions or thermal processes. Using the stellar evolution code Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics(MESA), we study stellar neutrino luminosity with different masses. The neutrino luminosities of stars with different initial masses at different evolutionary stages are simulated. We find that the neutrino flux of a star with 1 M⊙mass at an evolutionary age of 4.61 × 10~9 yr is consistent with that of the Sun. In general, neutrinos are produced by nuclear reactions, and the neutrino luminosity of stars is about one or two magnitudes lower than the photo luminosity. However, neutrino luminosity can exceed photo luminosity during the helium flash which can occur for stars with a mass lower than 8 M_⊙. Although the helium flash does not produce neutrinos, plasma decay, one of the thermal processes, can efficiently make neutrinos during this stage. Due to the high mass-loss rate, a star with a mass of 9 M_⊙does not undergo the helium flash. Its neutrinos mainly originate from nuclear reactions until the end of the AGB stage. At the end of the AGB stage, its neutrino luminosity results from plasma decay which is triggered by the gravitational energy release because of the stellar core contracting.     

Morphology and structure of extremely red objects at z ～ 1 in the CANDELS-COSMOS field

Using high-resolution HST/Wide Field Camera 3 F125 W imaging from the CANDELS-COSMOS field, we report the structural and morphological properties of extremely red objects(EROs) at z ～ 1. Based on the UVJ color criteria, we separate EROs into two types: old passive galaxies(OGs) and dusty star-forming galaxies(DGs). For a given stellar mass, we find that the mean size of OGs(DGs) is smaller by a factor of ～ 2(1.5) than that of present-day early-type(late-type) galaxies at a rest-frame optical wavelength. We derive the average effective radii of OGs and DGs, corresponding to 2.09 ± 1.13 kpc and 3.27 ± 1.14 kpc, respectively. Generally,the DGs are heterogeneous, with mixed features including bulges, disks and irregular structures, with relatively high M20, large size and low G. By contrast, OGs have elliptical-like compact morphologies with lower M20, smaller size and higher G, indicating a more concentrated and symmetric spatial extent of the stellar population distribution in OGs than DGs. These findings imply that OGs and DGs have different evolutionary processes, and that the minor merger scenario is the most likely mechanism for the structural properties of OGs. However, the size evolution of DGs is possibly due to the secular evolution of galaxies.     

Stellar population analysis on the stacked spectra of double-peaked emission-line galaxies

Double-peaked emission-line galaxies have long been perceived as objects related to merging galaxies or other phenomena with disturbed dynamical activities, such as outflows and disk rotation. In order to find the connection between the unique activities happening in these objects and their stellar population physics, we study the stellar populations of the stacked spectra drawn from double-peaked emission-line galaxies in the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope(LAMOST) Data Release 4(DR4) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey(SDSS) Data Release 7(DR7) databases. We group the selected double-peaked emission-line objects into 10 different types of pairs based on the Baldwin-Phillips-Terlevich(BPT) diagnosis for each pair of blueshifted and redshifted components, and then stack the spectra of each group for analysis. The software STARLIGHT is employed to fit each stacked spectrum, and the contributions of stars at different ages and metallicities are quantified for subsequent comparative study and analysis. To highlight the commonality and uniqueness in these double-peaked emitting objects, we compare the population synthesis results of the stacked spectra of double-peaked emission-line galaxies with those of their counterpart reference samples displaying single-peaked emission features. The reference samples are also selected from the LAMOST DR4 and SDSS DR7 databases. From the comparison results,we confirm the strong correlations between stellar populations and their spectral classes, and find that the double-peaked emitting phenomenon is more likely to occur in an ‘older' stellar environment and the subgroups hosting different BPT components will show an obvious heterogeneous star formation history.     

Do Minor Interactions Trigger Star Formation in Galaxy Pairs?

We analyze the galaxy pairs in a set of volume limited samples from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to study the effects of minor interactions on the star formation rate(SFR) and color of galaxies. We carefully design control samples of isolated galaxies by matching the stellar mass and redshift of the minor pairs. The SFR distributions and color distributions in the minor pairs differ from their controls at >99% significance level. We also simultaneously match the control galaxies in stellar ma...     

The non-Gaussian distribution of galaxy gravitational fields

We perform a theoretical analysis of the observational dependence between angular momentum of galaxy clusters and their mass(richness), based on the method introduced in our previous paper.For that we obtain the distribution function of gravitational fields for astronomical objects(like galaxies and/or smooth halos of different kinds) due to their tidal interaction. By applying the statistical method of Chandrasekhar, we are able to show that the distribution function is determined by the form of interaction between objects and for multipole(tidal) interaction it is never Gaussian. Our calculation permits demonstrating how the alignment of galaxy angular momenta depends on cluster richness. The specific form of the corresponding dependence is due to assumptions made about cluster morphology. Our approach also predicts the time evolution of stellar object angular momenta within CDM and ΛCDM models. Namely, we have shown that angular momentum of galaxies increases with time.     

The Origin of Infrared Emission from the Infrared Luminous Galaxy NGC 4418

We present a study of the origin of infrared (IR) emission in the optically normal, infrared luminous galaxy NGC 4418. By decomposing the stellar absorption features and continua in the range of 3600-8000 A from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey into a set of simple stellar populations, we derive the stellar properties for the nuclear region of NGC 4418. We compare the observed infrared luminosity with the one derived from the starburst model, and find that star-forming activity contributes only 7% to the total IR emission, that as the IR emission region is spatially very compact, the most possible source for the greater part of the IR emission is a deeply embedded AGN, though an AGN component is found to be unnecessary for fitting the optical spectrum.     

Discovery of Five Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies and Im- plications on the NLS1 Model

We report the discovery of five Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLSls) identified from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey bright sources. One of them has a quasar-like luminosity and two, including the quasar-like one, have close companions and/or show interacting features. We calculate the central black hole masses and Eddington ratios for the five NLSls. In combination with the objects of Kaspi et al., we find that NLSls have smaller central black hole masses and higher accretion rate than normal Seyfert 1s.     

Correlation between excitation index and Eddington ratio in radio galaxies

We use a sample of 111 radio galaxies with redshift z 0.3 to investigate their nuclear properties.The black hole masses of the sources in this sample are estimated with the velocity dispersion/luminosity of the galaxies, or the width of the broad-lines. We find that the excitation index, the relative intensity of low and high excitation lines, is correlated with the Eddington ratio for this sample. The size of the narrow-line region(NLR) was found to vary with ionizing luminosity as RNLR∝L_(ion)~(0.25)(Liu et al. 2013). Using this empirical relation, we find that the correlation between the excitation index and the Eddington ratio can be reproduced by photoionization models. We adopt two sets of spectral energy distributions(SEDs), with or without a big blue bump in ultraviolet as the ionizing continuum, and infer that the modeled correlation between the excitation index and the Eddington ratio is insensitive to the applied SED. This means that the difference between high excitation galaxies and low excitation galaxies is not caused by the different accretion modes in these sources. Instead, it may be caused by the size of the NLR.     

What is the right way to quench star formation in semi-analytic models of galaxy formation?

Semi-analytic models of galaxy formation are powerful tools to study the evolution of a galaxy population in a cosmological context. However, most models overpredict the number of lowmass galaxies at high redshifts and the colors of model galaxies are not right in the sense that low-mass satellite galaxies are too red and centrals are too blue. The recent version of the L-Galaxies model by Henriques et al.(H15) is a step forward to solve these problems by reproducing the evolution of stellar mass function and the overall fraction of red galaxies. In this paper we compare the two model predictions of L-Galaxies(the other is Guo et al., G13) to SDSS data in detail. We find that in the H15 model the red fraction of central galaxies now agrees with the data due to their implementation of strong AGN feedback, but the stellar mass of centrals in massive halos is now slightly lower than what is indicated by the data. For satellite galaxies, the red fraction of low-mass galaxies(log M*/M⊙ 10)also agrees with the data, but the color of massive satellites(10 log M*/M⊙ 11) is slightly bluer.The correct color of centrals and the bluer color of massive satellites indicate that quenching in massive satellites is not strong enough. We also find that there are too many red spirals and less bulge-dominated galaxies in both H15 and G13 models. Our results suggest that additional mechanisms, such as more minor mergers or disk instability, are needed to slightly increase the stellar mass of the central galaxy in massive galaxies, mainly in the bulge component, and bulge dominated galaxies will be quenched not only by minor mergers, but also by some other mechanisms.     

Growth of Black Holes and Their Host Spheroids in (Sub)mm-loud High-Redshift QSOs

We study the growth of black holes and stellar population in spheroids at high redshift using several (sub)mm-loud QSO samples. Applying the same criteria established in an earlier work, we find that, similar to IR QSOs at low redshift, the far-infrared emission of these (sub)mm-loud QSOs mainly originates from dust heated by starbursts. By combining low-z IR QSOs and high-z (sub)mm-loud QSOs, we find a trend that the star formation rate (M) increases with the accretion rate (Macc). We compare the values of M/Macc for submm emitting galaxies (SMGs), far-infrared ultraluminous/hyperluminous QSOs and typical QSOs, and construct a likely evolution scenario for these objects. The (sub)mm-loud QSO transition phase has both high Macc and M and hence is important for establishing the correlation between the masses of black holes and spheroids.     

Elliptical Galaxies with Emission Lines from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

As part of a study of star formation history along the Hubble sequence, we present here the results for 11 elliptical galaxies with strong nebular emission lines.After removing the dilution from the underlying old stellar populations by use of stellar population synthesis model,we derive the accurate fluxes of all the emission lines in these objects,which are then classified,using emission line ratios, into one Seyfert 2,six LINERs and four HII galaxies.We also identify one HII galaxy (A1216 04)as a hitherto unknown Wolf-Rayet galaxy from the presence of the Wolf- Rayet broad bump at 4650 (?).We propose that the star-forming activities in elliptical galaxies are triggered by either galaxy-galaxy interaction or the merging of a small satellite/a massive star cluster,as has been suggested by recent numerical simulations.