Galaxy formation and evolution

Abstract:

Cappellari (2008) presented a flexible and efficient method to model the stellar kinematics of anisotropic axisymmetric and spherical stellar systems. The spherical formalism could be used to model the line-of-sight velocity second moments allowing for essentially arbitrary radial variations in the anisotropy and general luminous and total density profiles. Here we generalize the spherical formalism by providing the expressions for all three components of the projected second moments, including the two proper motion components. A reference implementation is now included in the public JAM package available at http://purl.org/cappellari/software.

Abstract:

We study the total mass-density profile for a sample of 14 fast-rotator early-type galaxies (stellar masses ). We combine observations from the SLUGGS and ATLAS surveys to map out the stellar kinematics in two dimensions, out to a median radius for the sample of four half-light radii Re (or 10 kpc) and a maximum radius of 2.0-6.2 Re (or 4-21 kpc). We use axisymmetric dynamical models based on the Jeans equations, which allow for a spatially varying anisotropy; employ quite general profiles for the dark halos; and, in particular, do not place any restrictions on the profile slope. This is made possible by the availability of spatially extended two-dimensional kinematics. We find that our relatively simple models provide a remarkably good description of the observed kinematics. The resulting total density profiles are well described by a nearly isothermal power law from Re/10 to at least 4Re, the largest average deviation being 11%. The average logarithmic slope is with observed rms scatter of just . This scatter out to large radii, where dark matter dominates, is as small as previously reported by lensing studies around r ≈ Re/2, where the stars dominate. Our bulge-halo conspiracy places much tighter constraints on galaxy formation models. It illustrates the power of two-dimensional stellar kinematics observations at large radii. It is now important to test the generality of our results for different galaxy types and larger samples.

Abstract:

We obtained Hubble Space Telescope/Wide Field Camera 3 imaging of a sample of ten of the nearest and brightest nuclear clusters (NCs) residing in late-type spiral galaxies, in seven bands that span the near-UV to the near-IR. Structural properties of the clusters were measured by fitting two-dimensional surface brightness profiles to the images using GALFIT. The clusters exhibit a wide range of structural properties, with F814W absolute magnitudes that range from −11.2 to −15.1 mag and F814W effective radii that range from 1.4 to 8.3 pc. For 6 of the 10 clusters in our sample, we find changes in the effective radius with wavelength, suggesting radially varying stellar populations. In four of the objects, the effective radius increases with wavelength, indicating the presence of a younger population that is more concentrated than the bulk of the stars in the cluster. However, we find a general decrease in effective radius with wavelength in two of the objects in our sample, which may indicate extended, circumnuclear star formation. We also find a general trend of increasing roundness of the clusters at longer wavelengths, as well as a correlation between the axis ratios of the NCs and their host galaxies. These observations indicate that blue disks aligned with the host galaxy plane are a common feature of NCs in late-type galaxies, but are difficult to detect in galaxies that are close to face-on. In color–color diagrams spanning the near-UV through the near-IR, most of the clusters lie far from single-burst evolutionary tracks, showing evidence for multi-age populations. Most of the clusters have integrated colors consistent with a mix of an old population (>1 Gyr) and a young population (∼100–300 Myr). The wide wavelength coverage of our data provides a sensitivity to populations with a mix of ages that would not be possible to achieve with imaging in optical bands only. The surface brightness profiles presented in this work will be used for future stellar population modeling and dynamical studies of the clusters.