Sébastien Comerón

Photometric scaling relations of lenticular and spiral galaxies

Photometric scaling relations are studied for S0 galaxies and compared with those obtained for spirals. New two-dimensional multi-component decompositions are presented for 122 early-type disc galaxies, using deep K s -band images. Combining them with our previous decompositions, the final sample consists of 175 galaxies (Near-Infrared Survey of S0s, NIRSOS: 117 SOs + 22 S0/a and 36 Sa galaxies). As a comparison sample we use the Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey (OSUBSGS) of nearly 200 spirals, for which similar multi-component decompositions have previously been made by us. The improved statistics, deep images and the homogeneous decomposition method used allow us to re-evaluate the parameters of the bulges and discs. For spirals we largely confirm previous results, which are compared with those obtained for S0s. Our main results are as follows. (1) Important scaling relations are present, indicating that the formative processes of bulges and discs in S0s are coupled [e.g. M 0 K (disc) = 0.63 M 0 K (bulge) -9.3], as has been found previously for spirals [for OSUBSGS spirals M 0 K (disc) = 0.38 M 0 K (bulge) -15.5; the rms deviation from these relations is 0.5 mag for S0s and spirals]. (2) We obtain median r eff /h 0 r ~ 0.20, 0.15 and 0.10 for S0, S0/a-Sa and Sab-Sc galaxies, respectively: these values are smaller than predicted by simulation models in which bulges are formed by galaxy mergers. (3) The properties of bulges of S0s are different from the elliptical galaxies, which are manifested in the M 0 K (bulge) versus r eff relation, in the photometric plane (μ 0 , n, reff ), and to some extent also in the Kormendy relation (〈μ〉 eff versus r eff ). The bulges of S0s are similar to bulges of spirals with M 0 K (bulge) < -20 mag. Some S0s have small bulges, but their properties are not compatible with the idea that they could evolve to dwarfs by galaxy harassment. (4) The relative bulge flux (B/T) for S0s covers the full range found in the Hubble sequence, even with 13 per cent having B/T < 0.15, typical for late-type spirals. (5) The values and relations of the parameters of the discs [h 0 r , M 0 K (disc), μ 0 (0)] of the S0 galaxies in NIRS0S are similar to those obtained for spirals in the OSUBSGS. Overall, our results support the view that spiral galaxies with bulges brighter than -20 mag in the K band can evolve directly into S0s, due to stripping of gas followed by truncated star formation.

Reconstructing the Stellar Mass Distributions of Galaxies Using S4G IRAC 3.6 and 4.5 μm Images. II.: The Conversion from Light to Mass

We present a new approach for estimating the 3.6 μm stellar mass-to-light (M/L) ratio Υ_3.6 in terms of the [3.6]-[4.5] colors of old stellar populations. Our approach avoids several of the largest sources of uncertainty in existing techniques using population synthesis models. By focusing on mid-IR wavelengths, we gain a virtually dust extinction-free tracer of the old stars, avoiding the need to adopt a dust model to correctly interpret optical or optical/near-IR colors normally leveraged to assign the mass-to-light ratio Upsilon. By calibrating a new relation between near-IR and mid-IR colors of giant stars observed in GLIMPSE we also avoid the discrepancies in model predictions for the [3.6]-[4.5] colors of old stellar populations due to uncertainties in the molecular line opacities assumed in template spectra. We find that the [3.6]-[4.5] color, which is driven primarily by metallicity, provides a tight constraint on Upsilon3.6, which varies intrinsically less than at optical wavelengths. The uncertainty on Υ3.6 of ~0.07 dex due to unconstrained age variations marks a significant improvement on existing techniques for estimating the stellar M/L with shorter wavelength data. A single Υ3.6 = 0.6 (assuming a Chabrier initial mass function (IMF)), independent of [3.6]-[4.5] color, is also feasible because it can be applied simultaneously to old, metal-rich and young, metal-poor populations, and still with comparable (or better) accuracy (~0.1 dex) than alternatives. We expect our Υ3.6 to be optimal for mapping the stellar mass distributions in S4G galaxies, for which we have developed an independent component analysis technique to first isolate the old stellar light at 3.6 μm from nonstellar emission (e.g., hot dust and the 3.3 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon feature). Our estimate can also be used to determine the fractional contribution of nonstellar emission to global (rest-frame) 3.6 μm fluxes, e.g., in WISE imaging, and establishes a reliable basis for exploring variations in the stellar IMF.

THICK DISKS OF EDGE-ON GALAXIES SEEN THROUGH THE SPITZER SURVEY OF STELLAR STRUCTURE IN GALAXIES (S4G): LAIR OF MISSING BARYONS?

Most, if not all, disk galaxies have a thin (classical) disk and a thick disk. In most models thick disks are thought to be a necessary consequence of the disk formation and/or evolution of the galaxy. We present the results of a study of the thick disk properties in a sample of carefully selected edge-on galaxies with types ranging from T = 3 to T = 8. We fitted one-dimensional luminosity profiles with physically motivated functions—the solutions of two stellar and one gaseous isothermal coupled disks in equilibrium—which are likely to yield more accurate results than other functions used in previous studies. The images used for the fits come from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S^4G). We found that thick disks are on average more massive than previously reported, mostly due to the selected fitting function. Typically, the thin and thick disks have similar masses. We also found that thick disks do not flare significantly within the observed range in galactocentric radii and that the ratio of thick-to-thin disk scale heights is higher for galaxies of earlier types. Our results tend to favor an in situ origin for most of the stars in the thick disk. In addition, the thick disk may contain a significant amount of stars coming from satellites accreted after the initial buildup of the galaxy and an extra fraction of stars coming from the secular heating of the thin disk by its own overdensities. Assigning thick disk light to the thin disk component may lead to an underestimate of the overall stellar mass in galaxies because of different mass-to-light ratios in the two disk components. On the basis of our new results, we estimate that disk stellar masses are between 10% and 50% higher than previously thought and we suggest that thick disks are a reservoir of “local missing baryons.”

The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G): Precise Stellar Mass Distributions from Automated Dust Correction at 3.6 μm

The mid-infrared is an optimal window to trace stellar mass in nearby galaxies and the 3.6 m m IRAC band has been exploited to this effect, but such mass estimates can be biased by dust emission. We present our pipeline to reveal the old stellar flux at 3.6 μm and obtain stellar mass maps for more than 1600 galaxies available from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (SG). This survey consists of images in two infrared bands (3.6 and 4.5 m m ), and we use the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) method presented in Meidt et al. to separate the dominant light from old stars and the dust emission that can significantly contribute to the observed 3.6 m m flux. We exclude from our ICA analysis galaxies with low signal-to-noise ratio (S N 10 < ) and those with original [3.6]–[4.5] colors compatible with an old stellar population, indicative of little dust emission (mostly early Hubble types, which can directly provide good mass maps). For the remaining 1251 galaxies to which ICA was successfully applied, we find that as much as 10%–30% of the total light at 3.6 m m typically originates from dust, and locally it can reach even higher values. This contamination fraction shows a correlation with specific star formation rates, confirming that the dust emission that we detect is related to star formation. Additionally, we have used our large sample of mass estimates to calibrate a relationship of effective mass-to-light ratio (M/L) as a function of observed [3.6]–[4.5] color: M L log( ) = 0.339( 0.057)  ́ ([3.6] [4.5]) 0.336( 0.002)  . Our final pipeline products have been made public through IRSA, providing the astronomical community with an unprecedentedly large set of stellar mass maps ready to use for scientific applications.

THE IMPACT OF BARS ON DISK BREAKS AS PROBED BY S 4 G IMAGING.

We have analyzed the radial distribution of old stars in a sample of 218 nearby face-on disks, using deep 3.6 mu m images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. In particular, we have studied the structural properties of those disks with a broken or down-bending profile. We find that, on average, disks with a genuine single-exponential profile have a scale length and a central surface brightness which are intermediate to those of the inner and outer components of a down-bending disk with the same total stellar mass. In the particular case of barred galaxies, the ratio between the break and the bar radii (R-br/R-bar) depends strongly on the total stellar mass of the galaxy. For galaxies more massive than 10(10) M-circle dot, the distribution is bimodal, peaking at R-br/R-bar similar to 2 and similar to 3.5. The first peak, which is the most populated one, is linked to the outer Lindblad resonance of the bar, whereas the second one is consistent with a dynamical coupling between the bar and the spiral pattern. For galaxies below 10(10) M-circle dot, breaks are found up to similar to 10 R-bar, but we show that they could still be caused by resonances given the rising nature of rotation curves in these low-mass disks. While not ruling out star formation thresholds, our results imply that radial stellar migration induced by non-axisymmetric features can be responsible not only for those breaks at similar to 2 R-bar, but also for many of those found at larger radii.

The spitzer survey of stellar structure in galaxies (S^4G): multi-component decomposition strategies and data release

The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S^4G) is a deep 3.6 and 4.5 μm imaging survey of 2352 nearby (<40 Mpc) galaxies. We describe the S(^4)G data analysis pipeline 4, which is dedicated to two-dimensional structural surface brightness decompositions of 3.6 μm images, using GALFIT3.0. Besides automatic 1-component Sersic fits, and 2-component Sersic bulge + exponential disk fits, we present human-supervised multi-component decompositions, which include, when judged appropriate, a central point source, bulge, disk, and bar components. Comparison of the fitted parameters indicates that multi-component models are needed to obtain reliable estimates for the bulge Sersic index and bulge-to-total light ratio (B/T), confirming earlier results. Here, we describe the preparations of input data done for decompositions, give examples of our decomposition strategy, and describe the data products released via IRSA and via our web page (www.oulu.fi/astronomy/S4G_PIPELINE4/MAIN). These products include all the input data and decomposition files in electronic form, making it easy to extend the decompositions to suit specific science purposes. We also provide our IDL-based visualization tools (GALFIDL) developed for displaying/running GALFIT-decompositions, as well as our mask editing procedure (MASK_EDIT) used in data preparation. A detailed analysis of the bulge, disk, and bar parameters derived from multi-component decompositions will be published separately.

Breaks in thin and thick disks of edge-on galaxies imaged in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)

Breaks in the radial luminosity profiles of galaxies have until now been mostly studied averaged over disks. Here, we study separately breaks in thin and thick disks in 70 edge-on galaxies using imaging from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. We built luminosity profiles of the thin and thick disks parallel to midplanes and we found that thin disks often truncate (77%). Thick disks truncate less often (31%), but when they do, their break radius is comparable with that in the thin disk. This suggests either two different truncation mechanisms—one of dynamical origin affecting both disks simultaneously and another one only affecting the thin disk—or a single mechanism that creates a truncation in one disk or in both depending on some galaxy property. Thin disks apparently antitruncate in around 40% of galaxies. However, in many cases, these antitruncations are an artifact caused by the superposition of a thin disk and a thick disk, with the latter having a longer scale length. We estimate the real thin disk antitruncation fraction to be less than 15%. We found that the ratio of the thick and thin stellar disk mass is roughly constant (0.2 120 km s^–1, but becomes much larger at smaller velocities. We hypothesize that this is due to a combination of a high efficiency of supernova feedback and a slower dynamical evolution in lower-mass galaxies causing stellar thin disks to be younger and less massive than in higher-mass galaxies.

Erratum: Morphology and environment of galaxies with disc breaks in the S4G and NIRS0S

We study the surface brightness profiles of disc galaxies in the 3.6 mu m images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S(4)G) and K-s-band images from the Near-Infrared S0-Sa galaxy Survey (NIRS0S). We particularly connect properties of single exponential (type I), downbending double exponential (type II), and upbending double exponential (type III) disc profile types, to structural components of galaxies by using detailed morphological classifications, and size measurements of rings and lenses. We also study how the local environment of the galaxies affects the profile types by calculating parameters describing the environmental density and the tidal interaction strength. We find that in majority of type II profiles the break radius is connected with structural components such as rings, lenses, and spirals. The exponential disc sections of all three profile types, when considered separately, follow the disc scaling relations. However, the outer discs of type II, and the inner discs of type III, are similar in scalelength to the single exponential discs. Although the different profile types have similar mean environmental parameters, the scalelengths of the type III profiles show a positive correlation with the tidal interaction strength.

The baryonic tully-fisher relationship for S4G galaxies and the "condensed" baryon fraction of galaxies

We combine data from the Spitzer Survey for Stellar Structure in Galaxies, a recently calibrated empirical stellar mass estimator from Eskew et al., and an extensive database of H i spectral line profiles to examine the baryonic Tully–Fisher (BTF) relation. We find (1) that the BTF has lower scatter than the classic Tully–Fisher (TF) relation and is better described as a linear relationship, confirming similar previous results, (2) that the inclusion of a radial scale in the BTF decreases the scatter but only modestly, as seen previously for the TF relation, and (3) that the slope of the BTF, which we find to be 3.5 ± 0.2 (Δ log Mbaryon/Δ log v_c), implies that on average a nearly constant fraction (∼0.4) of all baryons expected to be in a alo are “condensed” onto the central region of rotationally supported galaxies. The condensed baryon fraction, M_baryon/M_total, is, to our measurement precision, nearly independent of galaxy circular velocity (our sample spans circular velocities, v_c, between 60 and 250 km s^−1, but is extended to v_c ∼ 10 km s^−1 using data from the literature). The observed galaxy-to-galaxy scatter in this fraction is generally ≤a factor of 2 despite fairly liberal selection criteria. These results imply that cooling and heating processes, such as cold versus hot accretion, mass loss due to stellar winds, and active galactic nucleus driven feedback, to the degree that they affect the global galactic properties involved in the BTF, are independent of halo mass for galaxies with 10 < vc < 250 km s^−1 and typically introduce no more than a factor of two range in the resulting M_baryon/M_total. Recent simulations by Aumer et al. of a small sample of disk galaxies are in excellent agreement with our data, suggesting that current simulations are capable of reproducing the global properties of individual disk galaxies. More detailed comparison to models using the BTF holds great promise, but awaits improved determinations of the stellar masses.

ARRAKIS: atlas of resonance rings as known in the S4G

Context. Resonance rings and pseudorings (here collectively called rings) are thought to be related to the gathering of material near dynamical resonances caused by non-axisymmetries in galaxy discs. This means that they are the result of secular evolution processes that redistribute material and angular momentum in discs. Studying them may give clues on the formation and growth of bars and other disc non-axisymmetries. Aims. Our aims are to produce a catalogue and an atlas of the rings detected in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S(4)G) and to conduct a statistical study of the data in the catalogue. Methods. We traced the contours of rings previously identified and fitted them with ellipses. We found the orientation of bars by studying the galaxy ellipse fits from the S(4)G pipeline 4. We used the galaxy orientation data obtained by the S4G pipeline 4 to obtain intrinsic ellipticities and orientations of rings and the bars. Results. ARRAKIS contains data on 724 ringed galaxies in the S(4)G. The frequency of resonance rings in the S4G is of 16 +/- 1% and 35 +/- 1% for outer and inner features, respectively. Outer rings are mostly found in Hubble stages - 1 \textless= T \textless= 4. Inner rings are found in a broad distribution that covers the range - 1 \textless= T \textless= 7. We confirm that outer rings have two preferred orientations, namely parallel and perpendicular to the bar. We confirm a tendency for inner rings to be oriented parallel to the bar, but we report the existence of a significant fraction (maybe as large as 50%) of inner features that have random orientations with respect to the bar. These misaligned inner rings are mostly found in late-type galaxies (T \textgreater= 4). We find that the fraction of barred galaxies hosting outer (inner) rings is similar to 1.7 times (similar to 1.3 times) that in unbarred galaxies. Conclusions. We confirm several results from previous surveys as well as predictions from simulations of resonant rings and/or from manifold flux tube theory. We report that a significant fraction of inner rings in late-type galaxies have a random orientation with respect to the bar. This may be caused by spiral modes that are decoupled from the bar and dominate the Fourier amplitude spectrum at the radius of the inner ring. The fact that rings are only mildly favoured by bars suggests that those in unbarred galaxies either formed because of weak departures from the axisymmetry of the galactic potential or that they are born because of bars that were destroyed after the ring formation.