Cheng Li

SDSS-IV MaNGA IFS GALAXY SURVEY—SURVEY DESIGN, EXECUTION, AND INITIAL DATA QUALITY

The MaNGA Survey (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) is one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV. It is obtaining integral field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies at a spectral resolution of R ∼ 2000 from 3622 to 10354 A. The design of the survey is driven by a set of science requirements on the precision of estimates of the following properties: star formation rate surface density, gas metallicity, stellar population age, metallicity, and abundance ratio, and their gradients; stellar and gas kinematics; and enclosed gravitational mass as a function of radius. We describe how these science requirements set the depth of the observations and dictate sample selection. The majority of targeted galaxies are selected to ensure uniform spatial coverage in units of effective radius (Re) while maximizing spatial resolution. About two-thirds of the sample is covered out to 1.5Re (Primary sample), and one-third of the sample is covered to 2.5Re (Secondary sample). We describe the survey execution with details that would be useful in the design of similar future surveys. We also present statistics on the achieved data quality, specifically the point-spread function, sampling uniformity, spectral resolution, sky subtraction, and flux calibration. For our Primary sample, the median r-band signal-to-noise ratio is ∼70 per 1.4 A pixel for spectra stacked between 1Re and 1.5Re. Measurements of various galaxy properties from the first-year data show that we are meeting or exceeding the defined requirements for the majority of our science goals.

SDSS-IV MaNGA : the impact of diffuse ionized gas on emission-line ratios, interpretation of diagnostic diagrams and gas metallicity measurements

Diffuse Ionized Gas (DIG) is prevalent in star-forming galaxies. Using a sample of 365 nearly face-on star-forming galaxies observed by MaNGA, we demonstrate how DIG in star-forming galaxies impacts the measurements of emission line ratios, hence the interpretation of diagnostic diagrams and gas-phase metallicity measurements. At fixed metallicity, DIG-dominated low Halpha surface brightness regions display enhanced [SII]/Halpha, [NII]/Halpha, [OII]/Hbeta, and [OI]/Halpha. The gradients in these line ratios are determined by metallicity gradients and Halpha surface brightness. In line ratio diagnostic diagrams, contamination by DIG moves HII regions towards composite or LI(N)ER-like regions. A harder ionizing spectrum is needed to explain DIG line ratios. Leaky HII region models can only shift line ratios slightly relative to HII region models, and thus fail to explain the composite/LI(N)ER line ratios displayed by DIG. Our result favors ionization by evolved stars as a major ionization source for DIG with LI(N)ER-like emission. nDIG can significantly bias the measurement of gas metallicity and metallicity gradients derived using strong-line methods. Metallicities derived using N2O2 are optimal because they exhibit the smallest bias and error. Using O3N2, R23, N2=[NII]/Halpha, and N2S2Halpha (Dopita et al. 2016) to derive metallicities introduces bias in the derived metallicity gradients as large as the gradient itself. The strong-line method of Blanc et al. (2015; IZI hereafter) cannot be applied to DIG to get an accurate metallicity because it currently contains only HII region models which fail to describe the DIG.

SDSS-IV MaNGA : environmental dependence of stellar age and metallicity gradients in nearby galaxies

We present a study on the stellar age and metallicity distributions for 1105 galaxies using the STARLIGHT software on MaNGA integral field spectra. We derive age and metallicity gradients by fitting straight lines to the radial profiles, and explore their correlations with total stellar mass M*, NUV-r colour and environments, as identified by both the large scale structure (LSS) type and the local density. We find that the mean age and metallicity gradients are close to zero but slightly negative, which is consistent with the inside-out formation scenario. Within our sample, we find that both the age and metallicity gradients show weak or no correlation with either the LSS type or local density environment. In addition, we also study the environmental dependence of age and metallicity values at the effective radii. The age and metallicity values are highly correlated with M* and NUV-r and are also dependent on LSS type as well as local density. Low-mass galaxies tend to be younger and have lower metallicity in low-density environments while high-mass galaxies are less affected by environment.

Deriving a multivariate α_(CO) conversion function using the [CII]/CO(1-0) ratio and its application to molecular gas scaling relations

We present Herschel PACS observations of the [C II] 158 μm emission line in a sample of 24 intermediate mass (9 < logu2009M_*/M_⊙ < 10) and low metallicity (0.4 < Z/Z_⊙ < 1.0) galaxies from the xCOLD GASS survey. In combination with IRAM COu2009(1−0) measurements, we establish scaling relations between integrated and molecular region L_([CII])/L_(COu2009(1–0)) ratios as a function of integrated galaxy properties. A Bayesian analysis reveals that only two parameters, metallicity and offset from the main sequence, Δ(MS), are needed to quantify variations in the luminosity ratio; metallicity describes the total dust content available to shield CO from UV radiation, while Δ(MS) describes the strength of this radiation field. We connect the L_([CII])/L_(COu2009(1–0)) ratio to the CO-to-H_2 conversion factor and find a multivariate conversion function, which can be used up to z ∼ 2.5. This function depends primarily on metallicity, with a second-order dependence on Δ(MS). We apply this to the full xCOLD GASS and PHIBSS1 surveys and investigate molecular gas scaling relations. We find a flattening of the relation between gas mass fraction and stellar mass at logu2009M_* < 10.0. While the molecular gas depletion time varies with sSFR, it is mostly independent of mass, indicating that the low L_(CO)/SFR ratios long observed in low-mass galaxies are entirely due to photodissociation of CO and not to an enhanced star formation efficiency.

SDSS-IV MaNGA: Variation of the Stellar Initial Mass Function in Spiral and Early-type Galaxies

We perform Jeans anisotropic modeling (JAM) on elliptical and spiral galaxies from the MaNGA DR13 sample. By comparing the stellar mass-to-light ratios estimated from stellar population synthesis (SPS) and from JAM, we find a similar systematic variation of the initial mass function (IMF) as in the earlier

SDSS-IV MaNGA : properties of galaxies with kinematically decoupled stellar and gaseous components

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SOUTH GALACTIC CAP u-BAND SKY SURVEY (SCUSS): DATA REDUCTION

results. Early type galaxies (elliptical and lenticular) with lower velocity dispersions within one effective radius are consistent with a Chabrier-like IMF while galaxies with higher velocity dispersions are consistent with a more bottom heavy IMF such as the Salpeter IMF. Spiral galaxies have similar systematic IMF variations, but with slightly different slopes and larger scatters, due to the uncertainties caused by higher gas fractions and extinctions for these galaxies. Furthermore, we examine the effects of stellar mass-to-light ratio gradients on our JAM modeling, and find that the trends from our results becomes stronger after considering the gradients.

Constraining the H i-Halo Mass Relation from Galaxy Clustering

We study the properties of 66 galaxies with kinematically misaligned gas and stars from MaNGA survey. The fraction of kinematically misaligned galaxies varies with galaxy physical parameters, i.e. M∗, SFR and sSFR. According to their sSFR, we further classify these 66 galaxies into three categories, 10 star-forming, 26 ‘Green Valley’ and 30 quiescent ones. The properties of different types of kinematically misaligned galaxies are different in that the starforming ones have positive gradient in Dn4000 and higher gas-phase metallicity, while the green valley/quiescent ones have negative Dn4000 gradients and lower gas-phase metallicity on average. There is evidence that all types of the kinematically misaligned galaxies tend to live in more isolated environment. Based on all these observational results, we propose a scenario for the formation of star-forming galaxies with kinematically misaligned gas and stars − the progenitor accretes misaligned gas from a gas-rich dwarf or cosmic web, the cancellation of angular momentum from gas–gas collisions between the pre-existing gas and the accreted gas largely accelerates gas inflow, leading to fast centrally concentrated star formation. The higher metallicity is due to enrichment from this star formation. For the kinematically misaligned green valley and quiescent galaxies, they might be formed through gas-poor progenitors accreting kinematically misaligned gas from satellites which are smaller in mass.

SDSS-IV MaNGA-resolved Star Formation and Molecular Gas Properties of Green Valley Galaxies: A First Look with ALMA and MaNGA

The South Galactic Cap u-band Sky Survey (SCUSS) is a deep u-band imaging survey in the Southern Galactic Cap, using the 90Prime wide-field imager on the 2.3 Bok telescope at Kitt Peak. The survey observations started in 2010 and ended in 2013. The final survey area is about 5000 deg(2) with a median 5s point source limiting magnitude of similar to 23.2. This paper describes the survey data reduction process, which includes basic imaging processing, astrometric and photometric calibrations, image stacking, and photometric measurements. Survey photometry is performed on objects detected both on SCUSS u-band images and in the SDSS database. Automatic, aperture, point-spread function (PSF), and model magnitudes are measured on stacked images. Co-added aperture, PSF, and model magnitudes are derived from measurements on single-epoch images. We also present comparisons of the SCUSS photometric catalog with those of the SDSS and Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy surveys.

The SDSS-IV MaNGA sample: design, optimization, and usage considerations

We study the dependence of galaxy clustering on atomic gas mass using a sample of