Space Telescope Science Institute

About: Space Telescope Science Institute is a facility organization based out in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Galaxy & Stars. The organization has 2448 authors who have published 14154 publications receiving 947296 citations. The organization is also known as: STScI.

The magellanic mopra assessment (magma). i. the molecular cloud population of the large magellanic cloud

Abstract: We present the properties of an extensive sample of molecular clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) mapped at 11?pc resolution in the CO(1-0) line. Targets were chosen based on a limiting CO flux and peak brightness as measured by the NANTEN survey. The observations were conducted with the ATNF Mopra Telescope as part of the Magellanic Mopra Assessment. We identify clouds as regions of connected CO emission and find that the distributions of cloud sizes, fluxes, and masses are sensitive to the choice of decomposition parameters. In all cases, however, the luminosity function of CO clouds is steeper than dN/dLL ?2, suggesting that a substantial fraction of mass is in low-mass clouds. A correlation between size and linewidth, while apparent for the largest emission structures, breaks down when those structures are decomposed into smaller structures. We argue that the correlation between virial mass and CO luminosity is the result of comparing two covariant quantities, with the correlation appearing tighter on larger scales where a size-linewidth relation holds. The virial parameter (the ratio of a cloud's kinetic to self-gravitational energy) shows a wide range of values and exhibits no clear trends with the CO luminosity or the likelihood of hosting young stellar object (YSO) candidates, casting further doubt on the assumption of virialization for molecular clouds in the LMC. Higher CO luminosity increases the likelihood of a cloud harboring a YSO candidate, and more luminous YSOs are more likely to be coincident with detectable CO emission, confirming the close link between giant molecular clouds and massive star formation.

THE UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTION OF STAR-FORMING GALAXIES VIA DROPOUT SELECTION AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 7 AND 8 FROM THE 2012 ULTRA DEEP FIELD CAMPAIGN

Abstract: We present a catalog of high-redshift star-forming galaxies selected to lie within the redshift range z ≃ 7-8 using the Ultra Deep Field 2012 (UDF12), the deepest near-infrared (near-IR) exposures yet taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). As a result of the increased near-IR exposure time compared to previous HST imaging in this field, we probe ~0.65 (0.25) mag fainter in absolute UV magnitude, at z ~ 7 (8), which increases confidence in a measurement of the faint end slope of the galaxy luminosity function. Through a 0.7 mag deeper limit in the key F105W filter that encompasses or lies just longward of the Lyman break, we also achieve a much-refined color-color selection that balances high redshift completeness and a low expected contamination fraction. We improve the number of dropout-selected UDF sources to 47 at z ~ 7 and 27 at z ~ 8. Incorporating brighter archival and ground-based samples, we measure the z ≃ 7 UV luminosity function to an absolute magnitude limit of M_(UV) = –17 and find a faint end Schechter slope of ɑ =-1.87^(+0.18)_(-0.17). Using a similar color-color selection at z ≃ 8 that takes our newly added imaging in the F140W filter into account, and incorporating archival data from the HIPPIES and BoRG campaigns, we provide a robust estimate of the faint end slope at z ≃ 8, ɑ =-1.94^(+0.21)_(-0.24). We briefly discuss our results in the context of earlier work and that derived using the same UDF12 data but with an independent photometric redshift technique.

Creation of cosmic structure in the complex galaxy cluster merger Abell 2744

Abstract: We present a detailed strong lensing, weak lensing and X-ray analysis of Abell 2744 (z = 0:308), one of the most actively merging galaxy clusters known. It appears to have unleashed ‘dark’, ‘ghost’, ‘bullet’ and ‘stripped’ substructures, each 10 14 M . The phenomenology is complex and will present a challenge for numerical simulations to reproduce. With new, multiband HST imaging, we identify 34 strongly-lensed images of 11 galaxies around the massive Southern ‘core’. Combining this with weak lensing data from HST, VLT and Subaru, we produce the most detailed mass map of this cluster to date. We also perform an independent analysis of archival Chandra X-ray imaging. Our analyses support a recent claim that the Southern core and Northwestern substructure are post-merger and exhibit morphology similar to the Bullet Cluster viewed from an angle. From the separation between X-ray emitting gas and lensing mass in the Southern core, we derive a new and independent constraint on the self-interaction cross section of dark matter particles =m

The BIMA Survey of Nearby Galaxies. I. The Radial Distribution of CO Emission in Spiral Galaxies

Abstract: We present the first results of the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association Survey of Nearby Galaxies (BIMA SONG), an imaging survey of the CO J = 1-0 emission in 44 nearby spiral galaxies at a typical resolution of 6''. BIMA SONG differs from previous high-resolution CO surveys in that (1) CO brightness was not an explicit selection criterion, (2) a larger area (200'' diameter for most galaxies) of each galaxy was imaged, and (3) fully sampled single-dish CO data (55'' resolution) were obtained for over half of the sample galaxies, so all of the CO flux is imaged in these galaxies. Here we present CO maps for a subsample of 15 BIMA SONG galaxies for which we have also obtained near-infrared or optical broadband data. The CO maps display a remarkable variety of molecular gas morphologies, and, as expected, the CO surface brightness distributions show considerably more substructure than the stellar light distributions, even when averaged over kiloparsec scales. The radial distribution of stellar light in galactic disks is generally characterized as an exponential. It is, therefore, of interest to investigate whether the molecular gas, which is the star-forming medium, has a similar distribution. Though our low-resolution single-dish radial profiles of CO emission can be described by simple exponentials, this is not true for the emission at our full 6'' resolution. The scale lengths of the CO disks are correlated with the scale lengths of the stellar disks, with a mean ratio of the scale lengths of about 1. There is, however, considerable intrinsic scatter in the correlation. We also find that (1) there is also a weak correlation between the ratio of K-band to CO luminosity and Hubble type; (2) in half of the galaxies presented here, CO emission does not peak at the location of the stellar nucleus; (3) averaged over the inner kiloparsec, the CO emission in one-half of the galaxies exhibits an excess over that expected from an exponential disk, which is similar to the excess in stellar light caused by the bulge stars; and (4) this excess CO emission may be due to an increase in the total molecular gas content in the bulge region, or alternatively, to an increase in the CO emissivity caused by the increased pressure of the bulge region.

The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey VLT/FORS2 spectroscopy in the GOODS-South Field

Abstract: Context. We present the full data set of the VIsible Multi-Object Spectrograph (VIMOS) spectroscopic campaign of the ESO/GOODS program in the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS), which complements the FORS2 ESO/GOODS spectroscopic campaign.Aims. The ESO/GOODS spectroscopic programs are aimed at reaching signal-to-noise ratios adequate to measure redshifts for galaxies with AB magnitudes in the range ~24-25 in the B and R band using VIMOS, and in the z band using FORS2.Methods. The GOODS/VIMOS spectroscopic campaign is structured in two separate surveys using two different VIMOS grisms. The VIMOS Low Resolution Blue (LR-Blue) and Medium Resolution (MR) orange grisms have been used to cover different redshift ranges. The LR-Blue campaign is aimed at observing galaxies mainly at 1.8 > 3.5.Results. The full GOODS/VIMOS spectroscopic campaign consists of 20 VIMOS masks. This release adds 8 new masks to the previous release (12 masks, Popesso et al. 2009, A&A, 494, 443). In total we obtained 5052 spectra, 3634 from the 10 LR-Blue masks and 1418 from the 10 MR masks. A significant fraction of the extracted spectra comes from serendipitously observed sources: ~21% in the LR-Blue and ~16% in the MR masks. We obtained 2242 redshifts in the LR-Blue campaign and 976 in the MR campaign for a total success rate of 62% and 69% respectively, which increases to 66% and 73% if only primary targets are considered. The typical redshift uncertainty is estimated to be 0.00084 (~255 km s-1 ) for the LR-Blue grism and 0.00040 (~120 km s-1 ) for the MR grism. By complementing our VIMOS spectroscopic catalog with all existing spectroscopic redshifts publicly available in the CDFS, we compiled a redshift master catalog with 7332 entries, which we used to investigate large scale structures out to z 3.7. We produced stacked spectra of LBGs in a few bins of equivalent width (EW ) of the Ly-α and found evidence for a lack of bright LBGs with high EW of the Ly-α . Finally, we obtained new redshifts for 12 X-ray sources of the CDFS and extended-CDFS.Conclusions. After the completion of the two complementary ESO/GOODS spectroscopic campaigns with VIMOS and FORS2 at VLT, the number of spectroscopic redshifts in CDFS/GOODS field increased dramatically, in particular at z 2. These data provide the redshift information indispensable to achieve the scientific goals of GOODS, such as tracing the evolution of galaxy masses, morphologies, clustering, and star formation.