Astronomical instrumentation

Abstract:

We present Galaxy Evolution Explorer far-ultraviolet (FUV) and near-ultraviolet (NUV) imaging of 34 nearby early-type galaxies from the SAURON representative sample of 48 E/S0 galaxies, all of which have ground-based optical imaging from the MDM Observatory. The surface brightness profiles of nine galaxies (≈26 per cent) show regions with blue UV-optical colours suggesting RSF. Five of these (≈15 per cent) show blue integrated UV-optical colours that set them aside in the NUV integrated colour-magnitude relation. These are objects with either exceptionally intense and localized NUV fluxes or blue UV-optical colours throughout. They also have other properties confirming they have had RSF, in particular Hβ absorption higher than expected for a quiescent population and a higher CO detection rate. This suggests that residual star formation is more common in early-type galaxies than we are used to believe. NUV blue galaxies are generally drawn from the lower stellar velocity dispersion (σe < 200 km s-1) and thus lower dynamical mass part of the sample. We have also constructed the first UV Fundamental Planes and show that NUV blue galaxies bias the slopes and increase the scatters. If they are eliminated, the fits get closer to expectations from the virial theorem. Although our analysis is based on a limited sample, it seems that a dominant fraction of the tilt and scatter of the UV Fundamental Planes is due to the presence of young stars in preferentially low-mass early-type galaxies. Interestingly, the UV-optical radial colour profiles reveal a variety of behaviours, with many galaxies showing signs of RSF, a central UV-upturn phenomenon, smooth but large-scale age and metallicity gradients and in many cases a combination of these. In addition, FUV-NUV and FUV-V colours even bluer than those normally associated with UV-upturn galaxies are observed at the centre of some quiescent galaxies. Four out of the five UV-upturn galaxies are slow rotators. These objects should thus pose interesting challenges to stellar evolutionary models of the UV upturn. © 2009 RAS.

Abstract:

We report spatially resolved variations in the 3.4-μm hydrocarbon absorption feature and the 3.3-μm polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission band in the Circinus galaxy over the central few arcsec. The absorption is measured towards warm emitting dust associated with Coronal line regions to the east and west of the nucleus. There is an absorption optical depth τ 3.4μm~0.1 in the core which decreases to the west and increases to the east. This is consistent with increased extinction out to ~40pc east of the core, supported by the Coronal emission line intensities which are significantly lower to the east than the west. PAH emission is measured to be symmetrically distributed out to ±4 arcsec, outside the differential extinction region. The asymmetry in the 3.4-μm absorption band reflects that seen in the 9.7-μm silicate absorption band reported by Roche et al., and the ratio of the two absorption depths remains approximately constant across the central regions, with τ 3.4μm/τ 9.7μm~0.06 ± 0.01. This indicates wellmixed hydrocarbon and silicate dust populations, with no evidence for significant changes near the nucleus. © 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 RAS.

Abstract:

We propose a physically motivated and self-consistent prescription for the modeling of transient neutron star low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) properties, such as duty cycle (DC), outburst duration, and recurrence time. We apply this prescription to the population synthesis models of field LMXBs presented by Fragos etal., and compare the transient LMXB population to the Chandra X-ray survey of the two elliptical galaxies NGC3379 and NGC4278, which revealed several transient sources. We are able to exclude models with a constant DC for all transient systems, while models with a variable DC based on the properties of each system are consistent with the observed transient populations. We predict that the majority of the observed transient sources in these two galaxies are LMXBs with red giant donors. Finally, our comparison suggests that transient LMXBs are very rare in globular clusters (GCs), and thus the number of identified transient LMXBs may be used as a tracer of the relative contribution of field and GC LMXB populations. © 2009. The American Astronomical Society.