Galaxy formation and evolution

Abstract:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable the detection of optical emission lines in galaxies spanning a broad range of luminosities out to redshifts z ≳ 10. Measurements of key galaxy properties, such as star formation rate and metallicity, through these observations will provide unique insight into, e.g. the role of feedback from stars and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in regulating galaxy evolution, the co-evolution of AGNs and host galaxies, the physical origin of the ‘main sequence’ of star-forming galaxies, and the contribution by star-forming galaxies to cosmic reionization. We present an original framework to simulate and analyse observations performed with the near-infrared spectrograph (NIRSpec) on board JWST. We use the BEAGLE tool (BayEsian Analysis of GaLaxy sEds) to build a semi-empirical catalogue of galaxy spectra based on photometric spectral energy distributions of dropout galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). We demonstrate that the resulting catalogue of galaxy spectra satisfies different types of observational constraints on high-redshift galaxies, and use it as an input to simulate NIRSpec/prism (R ∼ 100) observations. We show that a single ‘deep’ (∼100 ks) NIRSpec/prism pointing in the HUDF will enable S/N>3 detections of multiple optical emission lines in ∼30 (∼60) galaxies at z ≳ 6 (⁠z∼4-6⁠) down to mF160W≲30 AB mag. Such observations will allow measurements of galaxy star formation rates, ionization parameters, and gas-phase metallicities within factors of 1.5, mass-to-light ratios within a factor of 2, galaxy ages within a factor of 3, and V-band attenuation optical depths with a precision of 0.3.

Abstract:

Gravitational torques among objects orbiting a supermassive black hole drive the rapid reorientation of orbital planes in nuclear star clusters (NSCs), a process known as vector resonant relaxation. In this Letter, we determine the statistical equilibrium of systems with a distribution of masses, semimajor axes, and eccentricities. We average the interaction over the apsidal precession time and construct a Monte Carlo Markov chain method to sample the microcanonical ensemble of the NSC. We examine the case of NSCs formed by 16 episodes of star formation or globular cluster infall. We find that the massive stars and stellar mass black holes form a warped disk, while low mass stars resemble a spherical distribution with a possible net rotation. This explains the origin of the clockwise disk in the Galactic center and predicts a population of black holes (BHs) embedded within this structure. The rate of mergers among massive stars, tidal disruption events of massive stars by BHs, and BH-BH mergers are highly increased in such disks. The first two may explain the origin of the observed G1 and G2 clouds, the latter may be important for gravitational wave detections with LIGO and VIRGO. More generally, black holes are expected to settle in disks in all dense spherical stellar systems assembled by mergers of smaller systems including globular clusters.

Abstract:

This paper describes the observations and the first data release (DR1) of the ESO public spectroscopic survey “VANDELS, a deep VIMOS survey of the CANDELS CDFS and UDS fields”. The main targets of VANDELS are star-forming galaxies at redshift 2:4 < z < 5:5, an epoch when the Universe had not yet reached 20% of its current age, and massive passive galaxies in the range 1 < z < 2:5. By adopting a strategy of ultra-long exposure times, ranging from a minimum of 20 h to a maximum of 80 h per source, VANDELS is specifically designed to be the deepest-ever spectroscopic survey of the high-redshift Universe. Exploiting the red sensitivity of the refurbished VIMOS spectrograph, the survey is obtaining ultra-deep optical spectroscopy covering the wavelength range 4800–10 000 Å with a sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio to investigate the astrophysics of high-redshift galaxy evolution via detailed absorption line studies of well-defined samples of high-redshift galaxies. VANDELS-DR1 is the release of all medium-resolution spectroscopic data obtained during the first season of observations, on a 0.2 square degree area centered around the CANDELS-CDFS (Chandra deep-field south) and CANDELS-UDS (ultra-deep survey) areas. It includes data for all galaxies for which the total (or half of the total) scheduled integration time was completed. The DR1 contains 879 individual objects, approximately half in each of the two fields, that have a measured redshift, with the highest reliable redshifts reaching zspec ~ 6. In DR1 we include fully wavelengthcalibrated and flux-calibrated 1D spectra, the associated error spectrum and sky spectrum, and the associated wavelength-calibrated 2D spectra. We also provide a catalog with the essential galaxy parameters, including spectroscopic redshifts and redshift quality flags measured by the collaboration.We present the survey layout and observations, the data reduction and redshift measurement procedure, and the general properties of the VANDELS-DR1 sample. In particular, we discuss the spectroscopic redshift distribution and the accuracy of the photometric redshifts for each individual target category, and we provide some examples of data products for the various target types and the different quality flags. All VANDELS-DR1 data are publicly available and can be retrieved from the ESO archive. Two further data releases are foreseen in the next two years, and a final data release is currently scheduled for June 2020, which will include an improved rereduction of the entire spectroscopic data set.