Astronomical instrumentation

Abstract:

We present results from a series of follow-up observations of a subsample of the representative SAURON survey elliptical (E) and lenticular (SO) galaxies using the OASIS integral-field spectrograph. These observations focus on the central 10 '' x 10 '', with roughly double the spatial resolution of the SAURON observations. This increased spatial resolution reveals a number of interesting and previously unresolved features in the measured stellar kinematics and absorption-line strengths. We find that galaxies exhibiting the youngest global stellar populations (as measured with SAURON) often contain a distinctly young central region (on scales of a few hundred parsec or less) compared to the rest of the galaxy. Moreover, these compact, young components are found to be mostly counter-rotating with respect to the rest of the galaxy. Given that there is no well-established reason for such young components to 'prefer' counter- over co-rotation, this finding raises the following questions: How common are these small KDCs as a function of age? Why are there more young than old compact KDCs? Where are the equivalent co-rotating components? We explore these questions using simple simulated velocity fields and stellar population models, and find that the fading of the young component as it evolves, coupled with the fact that counter-rotating components are more easily detected in the velocity field, may help explain the observed trends.

Abstract:

We present the first low-luminosity [LX > (5-10) × 10³⁶ ergs s^-1] X-ray luminosity functions (XLFs) of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) determined for two typical old elliptical galaxies, NGC 3379 and NGC 4278. Because both galaxies contain little diffuse emission from hot ISM and no recent significant star formation (hence no high-mass X-ray binary contamination), they provide two of the best homogeneous sample of LMXBs. With 110 and 140 ks Chandra ACIS S3 exposures, we detect 59 and 112 LMXBs within the D25 ellipses of NGC 3379 and NGC 4278, respectively. The resulting XLFs are well represented by a single power law with a slope (in a differential form) of 1.9 ± 0.1. In NGC 4278, we can exclude the break at LX ∼ 5 × 10³⁷ ergs s ^-1 that was recently suggested as being a general feature of LMXB XLFs. In NGC 3379, on the other hand, we find a localized excess over the power-law XLF at ∼4 × 10³⁷ ergs s^-1, but with a marginal significance of ∼1.6 σ. Because of the small number of luminous sources, we cannot constrain the high-luminosity break (at 5 × 10³⁸ ergs s^-1) found in a large sample of early-type galaxies. For our two galaxies, the ratios of the integrated LMXB X-ray luminosities to the optical luminosities differ by a factor of 4, but are consistent with the general trend of a positive correlation between the X-ray-to-optical luminosity ratio and the globular cluster specific frequency. © 2006. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

We summarize results from McDermid et al. (2006), who present a set of follow-up observations of the sauron representative survey of early-type galaxies. We used the oasis integral-field spectrograph (while at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope) to obtain high spatial resolution spectra of 28 elliptical and lenticular galaxies. These seeing-limited data have on average twice the spatial resolution of the sauron data, albeit over a smaller field. These new data reveal previously unresolved features in these objects' stellar kinematics, stellar populations, and ionized gas properties. In this contribution, we focus on the discovery of a population of compact kinematically decoupled cores in a number of our sample galaxies. These compact cores are related to regions of young stars, and counter-rotate around the host galaxy's minor axis. We compare these objects to previously known decoupled components, which in contrast are composed of old stars, and which rotate around axes unrelated to the host galaxy's kinematics or shape. A key difference between these two kinds of decoupled cores are their physical size and relative mass. The compact decoupled cores are smaller than a few hundred parsec, and constitute less than a few percent of the total galaxy mass. The classical decoupled cores exist on kiloparsec scales, and comprise around a factor 10 more mass. We suggest that the small components are only found with young ages because of their low mass-to-light ratio. We show that after a few Gyrs, these components fade into the background galaxy, making them more difficult to detect. We draw the following conclusions: 1) young stars found in early-type galaxies are very often associated with centrally-concentrated counter-rotating components; 2) the small mass fraction and kinematic decoupling of these cores suggests that the star formation is associated to minor accretion events, which effectively drive the spread in luminosity-weighted ages found in early-type galaxies; and 3) such decoupled components may be common in all early-type galaxies, but not directly observed due to their small contribution to the total galaxy light at older ages. © 2007 International Astronomical Union.

Abstract:

We discuss SAURON absorption line strength maps of a sample of 24 early-type spirals, mostly Sa. From the Lick indices H, Mgb and Fe 5015 we derive SSP-ages and metallicities. By comparing the scaling relations of Mg b and H and central velocity dispersion with the same relation for the edge-on sample of Falcn-Barroso et al. (2002) we derive a picture in which the central regions of Sa galaxies contain at least 2 components: one (or more) thin, disc-like component, often containing recent star formation, and another, elliptical-like component, consisting of old stars and rotating more slowly, dominating the light above the plane. If one defines a bulge to be the component responsible for the light in excess of the outer exponential disc, then many Sa-bulges are dominated by a thin, disc-like component containing recent star formation. © 2007 International Astronomical Union.