Galaxy formation and evolution

Abstract:

Early-type galaxies (ETGs) are known to harbour dense spheroids of stars with scarce star formation (SF). Approximately a quarter of these galaxies have rich molecular gas reservoirs yet do not form stars efficiently. These gas-rich ETGs have properties similar to those of bulges at the centres of spiral galaxies. We use spatially resolved observations (∼100 pc resolution) of warm ionized-gas emission lines (Hβ, [O iii], [N ii], H, and [S ii]) from the imaging Fourier transform spectrograph SITELLE at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and cold molecular gas [12CO(2-1) or 12CO(3-2)] from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to study the SF properties of eight ETGs and bulges. We use the ionized-gas emission lines to classify the ionization mechanisms and demonstrate a complete absence of regions dominated by SF ionization in these ETGs and bulges, despite abundant cold molecular gas. The ionization classifications also show that our ETGs and bulges are dominated by old stellar populations. We use the molecular gas surface densities and H -derived SF rates (in spiral galaxies outside of the bulges) or upper limits (in ETGs and bulges) to constrain the depletion times (inverse of the SF efficiencies), suggesting again suppressed SF in our ETGs and bulges. Finally, we use the molecular gas velocity fields to measure the gas kinematics, and show that bulge dynamics, particularly the strong shear due to the deep and steep gravitational potential wells, is an important SF regulation mechanism for at least half of our sample galaxies.

Abstract:

We use the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation NewHorizon to study the effects of the baryonic component on the inner mass profile of dark matter haloes of isolated galaxies (). Dark matter deficits (‘cores’) develop only in galaxies in a narrow range of stellar mass, . The lower stellar mass limit arises because a minimum amount of star formation is required to drive the baryonic outflows that redistribute dark matter and create a core. The upper limit roughly coincides with the total amount of dark matter initially contained within the innermost 2 kpc (), which roughly coincides with the stellar half-mass radius of these dwarfs. This enclosed mass is quite insensitive to the total virial mass of the system. The same upper limit applies to other simulations, like NIHAO and EAGLE-CHT10, despite their rather different galaxy formation efficiencies. This suggests that it is the galaxy total stellar mass that determines when a core is formed, and not the galaxy-to-dark halo mass ratio, as argued in earlier work. This is consistent with a back-of-the-envelope estimate for a SN-induced rate of orbital diffusion. Although NewHorizon dwarfs reproduce the observed diversity of rotation curves better than other simulations, there are significant differences in the gravitational importance of baryons in the inner regions of dwarfs compared to observations. These differences prevent us from concluding that cosmological simulations are currently fully able to account for the observed diversity of rotation curve shapes.

Abstract:

We introduce the Bias-free Extragalactic Analysis for Cosmic Origins with NIRCam (BEACON) survey, a JWST Cycle 2 program allocated up to 600 pure-parallel hours of observations. BEACON explores high-latitude areas of the sky with JWST/NIRCam over ∼100 independent sight lines, totaling ∼0.3 deg2, reaching a median F444W depth of ≈28.2 AB mag (5σ). Based on existing JWST observations in legacy fields, we estimate that BEACON will photometrically identify 25–150 galaxies at z > 10 and 500–1000 at z ∼ 7–10 uniquely enabled by an efficient multiple filter configuration spanning 0.9–5.0 μm. The expected sample size of z > 10 galaxies will allow us to obtain robust number density estimates and to discriminate between different models of early star formation. In this paper, we present an overview of the survey design and initial results using the first 19 fields. We present 129 galaxy candidates at z ≳7 identified in those fields, including 11 galaxies at z ≳10 and several UV-luminous (MUV < −21 mag) galaxies at z ∼ 8. The number densities of z < 13 galaxies inferred from the initial fields are overall consistent with those in the literature. Despite reaching a considerably large volume (∼105 Mpc3), however, we find no galaxy candidates at z > 13, providing us with a complimentary insight into early galaxy evolution with minimal cosmic variance. We publish imaging and catalog data products for these initial fields. Upon survey completion, all BEACON data will be coherently processed and distributed to the community along with catalogs for redshift and other physical quantities.