Cosmology

Abstract:

We investigate the relation between the mass of super-massive black holes (Mbh) in QSOs and the mass of the dark matter halos hosting them (Mdh). We measure the widths of broad emission lines (Mgii lambda 2798, Civ lambda 1549) from QSO composite spectra as a function of redshift. These widths are then used to determine virial black hole mass estimates. We compare our virial black hole mass estimates to dark matter halo masses for QSO hosts derived by Croom et al. (2005) based on measurements of QSO clustering. This enables us to trace the Mbh-Mdh relation over the redshift range z=0.5 to 2.5. We calculate the mean zero-point of the Mbh-Mdh relation to be Mbh=10^(8.4+/-0.2)Msun for an Mdh=10^(12.5)Msun. These data are then compared with several models connecting Mbh and Mdh as well as recent hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy evolution. We note that the flux limited nature of QSO samples can cause a Malmquist-type bias in the measured zero-point of the Mbh-Mdh relation. The magnitude of this bias depends on the scatter in the Mbh-Mdh relation, and we reevaluate the zero-point assuming three published values for this scatter. (abridged)

Abstract:

Observations on galactic scales seem to be in contradiction with recent high resolution N-body simulations. This so-called cold dark matter (CDM) crisis has been addressed in several ways, ranging from a change in fundamental physics by introducing self-interacting cold dark matter particles to a tuning of complex astrophysical processes such as global and/or local feedback. All these efforts attempt to soften density profiles and reduce the abundance of satellites in simulated galaxy halos. In this contribution we are exploring the differences between a Warm Dark Matter model and a CDM model where the power on a certain scale is reduced by introducing a narrow negative feature (''dip''). This dip is placed in a way so as to mimic the loss of power in the WDM model: both models have the same integrated power out to the scale where the power of the Dip model rises to the level of the unperturbed CDM spectrum again. Using N-body simulations we show that that the new Dip model appears to be a viable alternative to WDM while being based on different physics: where WDM requires the introduction of a new particle species the Dip stems from a non-standard inflationary period. If we are looking for an alternative to the currently challenged standard LCDM structure formation scenario, neither the LWDM nor the new Dip model can be ruled out with respect to the analysis presented in this contribution. They both make very similar predictions and the degeneracy between them can only be broken with observations yet to come.

Abstract:

The SAURON integral-field survey reveals that small (∼0.1,Re) kinematically decoupled cores (KDCs) in early-type galaxies are increasingly young toward the center and are typically found in fast-rotating galaxies, while large KDCs (∼0.5 Re) have homogeneously old stars and are present in non-rotating galaxies (McDermid et al. 2006). GALEX UV imaging further allows the direct identification of regions of recent star formation (0.5 Gyr). In NGC 2974 for example, young stars are identified in the center and an outer ring Jeong et al. 2006). Nuclear and inner ionised-gas rings (Sarzi et al. 2006) then suggest that current star formation is bar-driven. The CO detection rate of SAURON early-type galaxies is 40% (Combes et al. in prep.). Synthesis imaging reveals that it is generally contained in a well-ordered central disk, both in galaxies with a (young) central stellar disk (e.g. NGC 4459, NGC 4526) or a (young) KDC (e.g. NGC 3032, NGC 4150) (Young et al. in prep.). CO also traces well the young stellar populations and ionised gas distribution and kinematics, but in KDCs not always the stellar kinematics Emsellem et al. 2004; Sarzi et al. 2006; Kuntschner et al. 2006). © 2007 International Astronomical Union.

Abstract:

In this poster contribution, we present results from high spatial resolution integral-field spectroscopy of elliptical (E) and lenticular (S0) galaxies from the SAURON representative survey, obtained with the OASIS and GMOS spectrographs. These seeing-limited observations explore the central 10'10 (typically one kiloparsec diameter) regions of these galaxies using a spatial sampling four times higher than SAURON (027 vs. 094 spatial elements), resulting in almost a factor of two improvement in the median PSF. These data allow accurate study of the central regions to complement the large-scale view provided by SAURON. We derive the stellar and gas kinematics, stellar absorption-line strengths and nebular emission-line strengths for our sample, and derive maps of the luminosity-weighted stellar age, metallicity and abundance ratio via stellar population models. From these data we find a wealth of structures either not seen or poorly resolved in the SAURON data, including a number of kinematically-decoupled cores (KDCs) in the centres of some galaxies. We compare the intrinsic size and luminosity-weighted stellar age of all the visible KDCs in the full SAURON sample, and find two types of components: kiloparsec-scale KDCs, which are older than 8 Gyr, and are found in galaxies with little net rotation; and compact KDCs, which have intrinsic diameters of less than a few hundred parsec, show a range of stellar ages from 0.5 - 15 Gyr (with 5/6 younger than 5 Gyr), are found exclusively in fast-rotating galaxies, and are close to counter-rotating around the same axis as their host. Of the 7 galaxies in the SAURON sample with integrated luminosity-weighted ages less than 5 Gyr, 5 show such compact KDCs, suggesting a link between counter-rotation and recent star-formation. We show that this may be partly due to a combination of small sample size at young ages, and an observational bias, since young KDCs are easier to detect than their older and/or co-rot ating counterparts.