Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca

University of Nottingham

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M. R. Merrifield

University of Nottingham

Meghan E. Gray

University of Nottingham

S. P. Bamford

University of Nottingham

Niv Drory

The University of Texas at Austin

B. Milvang‐Jensen

University of Copenhagen

Christian Wolf

Australian National University

Gregory Rudnick

University of Kansas

Bianca M. Poggianti

Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova

A. Böhm

University of Vienna

Dennis Zaritsky

University of Arizona

Cooperative Institutions

Max Planck Society

139

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

114

Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

102

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

Campbell Collaboration

National Institute for Astrophysics

University of Nottingham

Universidad de La Laguna

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

University College London

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OMEGA – OSIRIS Mapping of Emission-line Galaxies in A901/2: II. – Environmental influence on integrated star formation properties and AGN activity

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2017)

Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca Ana L. Chies-Santos Tim Weinzirl S. P. Bamford

We present a study of the star formation and AGN activity for galaxies in CP 15051 the Abell 901/2 multicluster system at z ∼ 0.167 as part of the OSIRIS Mapping of Emission-line Galaxies in A901/2 (OMEGA) survey. Using Tuneable Filter data obtained with the OSIRIS instrument at the Gran Telescopio Canarias, we produce spectra covering the Hα and |$[\mathrm{N}\,\small {II}]$| spectral lines for more than 400 galaxies. Using optical emission-line diagnostics, we identify a significant number of galaxies hosting AGN, which tend to have high masses and a broad range of morphologies. Moreover, within the environmental densities probed by our study, we find no environmental dependence on the fraction of galaxies hosting AGN. The analysis of the integrated Hα emission shows that the specific star formation rates of a majority of the cluster galaxies are below the field values for a given stellar mass. We interpret this result as evidence for a slow decrease in the star formation activity of star-forming galaxies as they fall into higher density regions, contrary to some previous studies that suggested a rapid truncation of star formation. We find that most of the intermediate- and high-mass spiral galaxies go through a phase in which their star formation is suppressed but still retain significant star formation activity. During this phase, these galaxies tend to retain their spiral morphology while their colours become redder. The presence of this type of galaxies in high-density regions indicates that the physical mechanism responsible for suppressing star formation affects mainly the gas component of the galaxies, suggesting that ram-pressure stripping or starvation is potentially responsible.

Stellar mass

Line (geometry)

10.1093/mnras/stx228

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Citations (19)

The environmental history of group and cluster galaxies in a Λ cold dark matter universe

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2012)

G. De Lucia Simone M. Weinmann Bianca M. Poggianti Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca Dennis Zaritsky

We use publicly available galaxy merger trees, obtained applying semi-analytic techniques to a large high resolution cosmological simulation, to study the environmental history of group and cluster galaxies.Our results highlight the existence of an intrinsic history bias which makes the nature versus nurture (as well as the mass versus environment) debate inherently ill posed.In particular we show that: (i) surviving massive satellites were accreted later than their less massive counterparts, from more massive haloes; (ii) the mixing of galaxy populations is incomplete during halo assembly, which creates a correlation between the time a galaxy becomes satellite and its present distance from the parent halo centre.The weakest trends are found for the most massive satellites, as a result of efficient dynamical friction and late formation times of massive haloes.A large fraction of the most massive group/cluster members are accreted onto the main progenitor of the final halo as central galaxies, while about half of the galaxies with low and intermediate stellar mass are accreted as satellites.Large fractions of group and cluster galaxies (in particular those of low stellar mass) have therefore been 'pre-processed' as satellites of groups with mass ∼ 10 13 M ⊙ .To quantify the relevance of hierarchical structure growth on the observed environmental trends, we have considered observational estimates of the passive galaxy fractions, and their variation as a function of halo mass and cluster-centric distance.Comparisons with our theoretical predictions require relatively long times (∼ 5 -7 Gyr) for the suppression of star formation in group and cluster satellites.It is unclear how such a gentle mode of strangulation can be achieved by simply relaxing the assumption of instantaneous stripping of the hot gas reservoir associated with accreting galaxies, or if the difficulties encountered by recent galaxy formation models in reproducing the observed trends signal a more fundamental problem with the treatment of star formation and feedback in these galaxies.

Satellite galaxy

Stellar mass

Cold dark matter

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.20983.x

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Citations (277)

Mapping and characterization of cosmic filaments in galaxy cluster outskirts: strategies and forecasts for observations from simulations

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2020)

Ulrike Kuchner Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca F. R. Pearce Meghan E. Gray Agustín Rost

ABSTRACT Upcoming wide-field surveys are well suited to studying the growth of galaxy clusters by tracing galaxy and gas accretion along cosmic filaments. We use hydrodynamic simulations of volumes surrounding 324 clusters from The ThreeHundred project to develop a framework for identifying and characterizing these filamentary structures and associating galaxies with them. We define three-dimensional reference filament networks reaching 5R200 based on the underlying gas distribution and quantify their recovery using mock galaxy samples mimicking observations such as those of the WEAVE Wide-Field Cluster Survey. Since massive galaxies trace filaments, they are best recovered by mass-weighting galaxies or imposing a bright limit (e.g. >L*) on their selection. We measure the transverse gas density profile of filaments, derive a characteristic filament radius of ≃ 0.7–1 h−1Mpc, and use this to assign galaxies to filaments. For different filament extraction methods, we find that at R > R200, ∼15–$20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of galaxies with M* > 3 × 109M⊙ are in filaments, increasing to $\sim 60{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ for galaxies more massive than the Milky Way. The fraction of galaxies in filaments is independent of cluster mass and dynamical state and is a function of cluster-centric distance, increasing from ∼13 per cent at 5R200 to ∼21 per cent at 1.5R200. As a bridge to the design of observational studies, we measure the purity and completeness of different filament galaxy selection strategies. Encouragingly, the overall three-dimensional filament networks and ∼67 per cent of the galaxies associated with them are recovered from two-dimensional galaxy positions.

10.1093/mnras/staa1083

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Citations (54)

From blue cloud to red sequence: evidence of morphological transition prior to star formation quenching

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2021)

V M Sampaio R. R. de Carvalho Ignacio Ferreras Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca Laura C. Parker

We present a study of a sample of 254 clusters from the SDSS-DR7 Yang Catalog and an auxiliary sample of field galaxies to perform a detailed investigation on how galaxy quenching depends on both environment and galaxy stellar mass. Our samples are restricted to 0.03$\leq$z$\leq$0.1 and we only consider clusters with $\rm log(M_{halo}/M_{\odot}) \geq 14$. Comparing properties of field and cluster galaxies in the Blue Cloud, Green Valley and Red Sequence, we find evidence that field galaxies in the red sequence hosted star formation events $\rm 2.1 \pm 0.7$ Gyr ago, on average, more recently than galaxies in cluster environments. Dissecting the star formation rate vs stellar mass diagram we show how morphology rapidly changes after reaching the green valley region, while the star formation rate keeps decreasing. In addition, we use the relation between location in the projected phase space and infall time to explore the time delay between morphological and specific Star Formation Rate variations. We estimate that the transition from late to early-type morphology happens in $\rm \Delta t_{inf} \sim$1 Gyr, whereas the quenching of star formation takes $\sim$3 Gyr. The time-scale we estimate for morphological transitions is similar to the expected for the delayed-then-rapid quenching model. Therefore, we suggest that the delay phase is characterized mostly by morphological transition, which then contributes morphological quenching as an additional ingredient in galaxy evolution.

Stellar mass

10.1093/mnras/stab3018

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Citations (14)

SDSS-IV MaNGA: Excavating the fossil record of stellar populations in spiral galaxies

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2020)

Thomas Peterken M. R. Merrifield Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca Amelia Fraser-McKelvie V. Ávila-Reese

ABSTRACT We perform a ‘fossil record’ analysis for ≈800 low-redshift spiral galaxies, using starlight applied to integral field spectroscopic observations from the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey to obtain fully spatially resolved high-resolution star formation histories (SFHs). From the SFHs, we are able to build maps indicating the present-day distribution of stellar populations of different ages in each galaxy. We find small negative mean age gradients in most spiral galaxies, especially at high stellar mass, which reflects the formation times of stellar populations at different galactocentric radii. We show that the youngest (<108.5 yr) populations exhibit significantly more extended distributions than the oldest (>109.5 yr), again with a strong dependence on stellar mass. By interpreting the radial profiles of ‘time slices’ as indicative of the size of the galaxy at the time those populations had formed, we are able to trace the simultaneous growth in mass and size of the spiral galaxies over the last 10 Gyr. Despite finding that the evolution of the measured light-weighted radius is consistent with inside-out growth in the majority of spiral galaxies, the evolution of an equivalent mass-weighted radius has changed little over the same time period. Since radial migration effects are likely to be small, we conclude that the growth of discs in spiral galaxies has occurred predominantly through an inside-out mode (with the effect greatest in high-mass galaxies), but this has not had anywhere near as much impact on the distribution of mass within spiral galaxies.

Stellar mass

Effective radius

10.1093/mnras/staa1303

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Citations (24)

SDSS-IV MaNGA: the formation sequence of S0 galaxies

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2018)

Amelia Fraser-McKelvie Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca M. R. Merrifield Martha Tabor Mariangela Bernardi

Gas stripping of spiral galaxies or mergers are thought to be the formation mechanisms of lenticular galaxies. In order to determine the conditions in which each scenario dominates, we derive stellar populations of both the bulge and disk regions of 279 lenticular galaxies in the MaNGA survey. We find a clear bimodality in stellar age and metallicity within the population of S0s and this is strongly correlated with stellar mass. Old and metal-rich bulges and disks belong to massive galaxies, and young and metal-poor bulges and disks are hosted by low-mass galaxies. From this we conclude that the bulges and disks are co-evolving. When the bulge and disk stellar ages are compared, we find that the bulge is almost always older than the disk for massive galaxies ($\textrm{M}_{\star} > 10^{10}~\textrm{M}_{\odot}$). The opposite is true for lower mass galaxies. We conclude that we see two separate populations of lenticular galaxies. The old, massive, and metal-rich population possess bulges that are predominantly older than their disks, which we speculate may have been caused by morphological or inside-out quenching. In contrast, the less massive and more metal-poor population have bulges with more recent star formation than their disks. We postulate they may be undergoing bulge rejuvenation (or disk fading), or compaction. Environment doesn't play a distinct role in the properties of either population. Our findings give weight to the notion that while the faded spiral scenario likely formed low-mass S0s, other processes, such as mergers, may be responsible for high-mass S0s.

Sequence (biology)

10.1093/mnras/sty2563

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Citations (60)

Faint galaxies close to QSOs with damped Lyman absorption systems

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (1996)

Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca Richard S. Ellis K. O’Brien

We have obtained very deep near-infrared images in the fields of 10 QSOs whose spectra contain damped Lyman-alpha absorption (DLA) systems with 1.7

QSOS

10.1093/mnras/281.3.945

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Citations (11)

Spectral gradients in central cluster galaxies: further evidence of star formation in cooling flows

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (1998)

N. Cardiel J. Gorgas Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca

We have obtained radial gradients in the spectral features of the λ4000-Å break (D4000) and Mg2 for a sample of 11 central cluster galaxies (CCGs): eight in clusters with cooling flows and three in clusters without. After careful removal of the emission lines found within the D4000 and Mg2 bandpasses for some objects, the new data strongly confirm the correlations between line-strength indices and the cooling flow phenomenon found in our earlier study. We find that such correlations depend on the presence and characteristics of emission lines in the inner regions of the CCGs. The nuclear indices are correlated with the mass deposition rate (M.) only when emission lines are found in the central regions of the galaxies. The central D4000 and Mg2 indices in cooling flow galaxies without emission lines are completely consistent with the indices measured in CCGs in clusters without cooling flows. CCGs in cooling flow clusters exhibit a clear sequence in the D4000–Mg2 plane, with a neat segregation depending on emission-line type and blue morphology. This sequence can be modelled, using stellar population models with a normal initial mass function (IMF), by a recent (∼ 0.1 Gyr old) burst of star formation, although model uncertainties do not allow us to completely discard continuous star formation or a series of bursts over the last few Gyr. In CCGs with emission lines, the gradients in the spectral indices are flat or positive inside the emission-line regions, suggesting the presence of young stars. Outside the emission-line regions, and in cooling flow galaxies without emission lines, gradients are negative and consistent with those measured in CCGs in clusters without cooling flows and giant elliptical galaxies. Index gradients measured exclusively in the emission-line region correlate with M.. Using the same population models we have estimated the radial profiles of the mass transformed into new stars. The derived profiles are remarkably parallel to the expected radial behaviour of the mass deposition rate derived from X-ray observations. Moreover, a large fraction ( probably most ) of the cooling flow gas accreted into the emission-line region is converted into stars. In the light of these new data, we discuss the evolutionary sequence suggested by McNamara, in which radio-triggered star formation bursts take place several times during the lifetime of the cooling flow. We conclude that this scenario is consistent with the available observations.

Cooling flow

Line (geometry)

10.1046/j.1365-8711.1998.01688.x

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Citations (59)

The time delay between star formation quenching and morphological transformation of galaxies in clusters: a phase–space view of EDisCS

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2019)

Kshitija Kelkar Meghan E. Gray Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca Gregory Rudnick Yara L. Jaffé

We explore the possible effect of cluster environments on the structure and star formation histories of galaxies by analysing the projected phase-space (PPS) of intermediate-redshift cluster (0.4

Stellar mass

10.1093/mnras/stz905

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Citations (21)

The Tully-Fisher relation of distant field galaxies

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2006)

S. P. Bamford Alfonso Aragón‐Salamanca B. Milvang‐Jensen

We examine the evolution of the Tully-Fisher relation (TFR) using a sample of 89 field spirals for which we have measured confident rotation velocities (Vrot). This sample covers the redshift range 0.1 ≲z≲ 1, with a median of = 0.33. The best-fitting TFR has a slope consistent with that measured locally, and we find no significant evidence for a change with redshift, although our sample is not large enough to well constrain this. By plotting the residuals from the local TFR versus redshift, we find evidence that these luminous (MB≲M*B) spiral galaxies are increasingly offset from the local TFR with redshift, reaching a brightening of −1.0 ± 0.5 mag, for a given Vrot, by z∼ 1. This is supported by fitting the TFR to our data in several redshift bins, suggesting a corresponding brightening of the TFR intercept. Since selection effects would generally increase the fraction of intrinsically bright galaxies at higher redshifts, we argue that the observed evolution is probably an upper limit. Previous studies have used an observed correlation between the TFR residuals and Vrot to argue that low-mass galaxies have evolved significantly more than those with higher mass. However, we demonstrate that such a correlation may exist purely due to an intrinsic coupling between the Vrot scatter and TFR residuals, acting in combination with the TFR scatter and restrictions on the magnitude range of the data, and therefore it does not necessarily indicate a physical difference in the evolution of galaxies with different Vrot. Finally, if we interpret the luminosity evolution derived from the TFR as due to the evolution of the star formation rate (SFR) in these luminous spiral galaxies, we find that SFR(z) ∝ (1 +z)1.7±1.1. Notwithstanding the relatively large uncertainty, this evolution, which is probably overestimated due to selection effects, seems to be slower than the one derived for the overall field galaxy population. This suggests that the rapid evolution in the SFR density of the Universe observed since z∼ 1 is not driven by the evolution of the SFR in individual bright spiral galaxies.

Tully–Fisher relation

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09867.x

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Citations (35)