您选择的条件: Simon J. Lilly
  • EIGER III. JWST/NIRCam observations of the ultra-luminous high-redshift quasar J0100+2802

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: We present the first rest-frame optical spectrum of a high-redshift quasar observed with JWST/NIRCam in Wide Field Slitless (WFSS) mode. The observed quasar, J0100+2802, is the most luminous quasar known at $z>6$. We measure the mass of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) by means of the rest-frame optical H$\beta$ emission line, and find consistent mass measurements of the quasar's SMBH of $M_\bullet\approx10^{10}\,M_\odot$ when compared to the estimates based on the properties of rest-frame UV emission lines CIV and MgII, which are accessible from ground-based observatories. To this end, we also present a newly reduced rest-frame UV spectrum of the quasar observed with X-Shooter/VLT and FIRE/Magellan for a total of 16.8 hours. We readdress the question whether this ultra-luminous quasar could be effected by strong gravitational lensing making use of the diffraction limited NIRCam images in three different wide band filters (F115W, F200W, F356W), which improves the achieved spatial resolution compared to previous images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope by a factor of two. We do not find any evidence for a foreground deflecting galaxy, nor for multiple images of the quasar, and determine the probability for magnification due to strong gravitational lensing with image separations below the diffraction limit of $\Delta\theta\lesssim 0.05''$ to be $\lesssim 2.2\times 10^{-3}$. Our observations therefore confirm that this quasar hosts a ten billion solar mass black hole less than $1$ Gyr after the Big Bang, which is challenging to explain with current black hole formation models.

  • The Similar Signatures of Coplanar Gas Inflow and Disk Warps in Galactic Gas Kinematic Maps

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: Hydrodynamic simulations suggest that galactic gas disks form when coplanar gas spirals into the inner regions of the disk. We recently presented a simple "modified accretion disk" model of viscous galactic disks in which star-formation is fed by a radial flow of gas. However, little observational evidence has been presented for such inflows, which are expected to be only a few km s$^{-1}$ in the central regions of the disk, i.e. within three disk scale-lengths, but could reach of order 50-100 km s$^{-1}$ in the very outer disk. The effects of systematic inflow on the 2-d velocity field are examined and it is shown that these are quite similar to those produced by geometric warps of the disks, with twist distortions of both the kinematic major and minor axes. This makes it potentially difficult to distinguish between these in practice. By comparing the handedness of the observed twisting of the kinematic axes and of the spiral arms for a sample of nearby galaxies, we find (assuming that the spiral arms are generally trailing) that the effects of warps are in fact likely to dominate over the effects of radial inflows. However, the common practice of treating these twist distortions of the kinematic major and minor axes as being due only to warps can lead, for galaxies of low-to-intermediate inclinations, to substantial underestimates of any systematic inflow.

  • From haloes to galaxies. III. The gas cycle of local galaxy populations

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: In Dou et al. (2021), we introduced the Fundamental Formation Relation (FFR), a tight relation between specific SFR (sSFR), H$_2$ star formation efficiency (SFE$_{\rm H_2}$), and the ratio of H$_2$ to stellar mass. Here we show that atomic gas HI does not follow a similar FFR as H$_2$. The relation between SFE$_{\rm HI}$ and sSFR shows significant scatter and strong systematic dependence on all of the key galaxy properties that we have explored. The dramatic difference between HI and H$_2$ indicates that different processes (e.g., quenching by different mechanisms) may have very different effects on the HI in different galaxies and hence produce different SFE$_{\rm HI}$-sSFR relations, while the SFE$_{\rm H_2}$-sSFR relation remains unaffected. The facts that SFE$_{\rm H_2}$-sSFR relation is independent of other key galaxy properties, and that sSFR is directly related to the cosmic time and acts as the cosmic clock, make it natural and very simple to study how different galaxy populations (with different properties and undergoing different processes) evolve on the same SFE$_{\rm H_2}$-sSFR $\sim t$ relation. In the gas regulator model (GRM), the evolution of a galaxy on the SFE$_{\rm H_2}$-sSFR($t$) relation is uniquely set by a single mass-loading parameter $\lambda_{\rm net,H_2}$. This simplicity allows us to accurately derive the H$_2$ supply and removal rates of the local galaxy populations with different stellar masses, from star-forming galaxies to the galaxies in the process of being quenched. This combination of FFR and GRM, together with the stellar metallicity requirement, provide a new powerful tool to study galaxy formation and evolution.

  • Mass and Environment as Drivers of Galaxy Evolution. IV. On the Quenching of Massive Central Disk Galaxies in The Local Universe

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The phenomenological study of evolving galaxy populations has shown that star forming galaxies can be quenched by two distinct processes: mass quenching and environment quenching (Peng et al. 2010). To explore the mass quenching process in local galaxies, we study the massive central disk galaxies with stellar mass above the Schechter characteristic mass. In Zhang et al. (2019), we showed that during the quenching of the massive central disk galaxies as their star formation rate (SFR) decreases, their molecular gas mass and star formation efficiency drop rapidly, but their HI gas mass remains surprisingly constant. To identify the underlying physical mechanisms, in this work we analyze the change during quenching of various structure parameters, bar frequency, and active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity. We find three closely related facts. On average, as SFR decreases in these galaxies: (1) they become progressively more compact, indicated by their significantly increasing concentration index, bulge-to-total mass ratio, and central velocity dispersion, which are mainly driven by the growth and compaction of their bulge component; (2) the frequency of barred galaxies increases dramatically, and at a given concentration index the barred galaxies have a significantly higher quiescent fraction than unbarred galaxies, implying that the galactic bar may play an important role in mass quenching; and (3) the "AGN" frequency increases dramatically from 10% on the main sequence to almost 100% for the most quiescent galaxies, which is mainly driven by the sharp increase of LINERs. These observational results lead to a self-consistent picture of how mass quenching operates.