您选择的条件: Chung-Pei Ma
  • The MASSIVE Survey. XVIII. Deep Wide-Field $K$-band Photometry and Local Scaling Relations for Massive Early-Type Galaxies

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: We present wide-field, deep $K$-band photometry of 98 luminous early-type galaxies (ETGs) from the MASSIVE survey based on observations taken with the WIRCam instrument on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Using these images, we extract accurate total $K$-band luminosities ($L_K$) and half-light radii ($R_e$) for this sample of galaxies. We use these new values to explore the size-luminosity and Faber-Jackson relations for massive ETGs. Within this volume-limited sample, we find clear evidence for curvature in both relations, indicating that the most luminous galaxies tend to have larger sizes and smaller velocity dispersions than expected from a simple power-law fit to less luminous galaxies. Our measured relations are qualitatively consistent with the most massive elliptical galaxies forming largely through dissipationless mergers. When the sample is separated into fast and slow rotators, we find the slow rotators to exhibit similar changes in slope with increasing $L_K$, suggesting that low-mass and high-mass slow rotators have different formation histories. The curvatures in the $R_e-L_K$ and $\sigma-L_K$ relations cancel, leading to a relation between dynamical mass and luminosity that is well described by a single power-law: $R_e\sigma^2 \propto {L_K}^b$ with $b\approx 1.2$. This is consistent with the tilt of the fundamental plane observed in lower mass elliptical galaxies.

  • The MASSIVE SURVEY XVI. The Stellar Initial Mass Function in the Center of MASSIVE Early-Type Galaxies

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental property in the measurement of stellar masses and galaxy star formation histories. In this work we focus on the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe $\log(M_{\star}/M_{\odot})>11.2$. We obtain high quality Magellan/LDSS-3 long slit spectroscopy with a wide wavelength coverage of $0.4\mu{\rm m}-1.01\mu{\rm m}$ for 41 early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the MASSIVE survey, and derive high S/N spectra within an aperture of $R_{\rm e}/8$. Using detailed stellar synthesis models, we constrain the elemental abundances and stellar IMF of each galaxy through full spectral modeling. All the ETGs in our sample have an IMF that is steeper than a Milky Way (Kroupa) IMF. The best-fit IMF mismatch parameter, $\alpha_{\rm IMF}=(M/L)/(M/L)_{\rm MW}$, ranges from 1.12 to 3.05, with an average of $\langle \alpha_{\rm IMF} \rangle=1.84$, suggesting that on average, the IMF is more bottom-heavy than Salpeter. Comparing the estimated stellar mass with the dynamical mass, we find that most galaxies have stellar masses smaller than their dynamical masses within the $1\sigma$ uncertainty. We complement our sample with lower-mass galaxies from the literature, and confirm that $\log(\alpha_{\rm IMF})$ is positively correlated with $\log(\sigma)$, $\log(M_{\star})$, and $\log(M_{\rm dyn})$. The IMF in the centers of more massive ETGs is more bottom-heavy. In addition, we find that $\log(\alpha_{\rm IMF})$ is positively correlated with both [Mg/Fe] and the estimated total metallicity [Z/H]. We find suggestive evidence that the effective stellar surface density $\Sigma_{\rm Kroupa}$ might be responsible for the variation of $\alpha_{\rm IMF}$. We conclude that $\sigma$, [Mg/Fe] and [Z/H] are the primary drivers of the global stellar IMF variation.

  • Keck Integral-Field Spectroscopy of M87 Reveals an Intrinsically Triaxial Galaxy and a Revised Black Hole Mass

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The three-dimensional intrinsic shape of a galaxy and the mass of the central supermassive black hole provide key insight into the galaxy's growth history over cosmic time. Standard assumptions of a spherical or axisymmetric shape can be simplistic and can bias the black hole mass inferred from the motions of stars within a galaxy. Here we present spatially-resolved stellar kinematics of M87 over a two-dimensional $250\mbox{$^{\prime\prime}$} \times 300\mbox{$^{\prime\prime}$}$ contiguous field covering a radial range of 50 pc to 12 kpc from integral-field spectroscopic observations at the Keck II Telescope. From about 5 kpc and outward, we detect a prominent 25 $\mathrm{km~s}^{-1}$ rotational pattern, in which the kinematic axis (connecting the maximal receding and approaching velocities) is $40^\circ$ misaligned with the photometric major axis of M87. The rotational amplitude and misalignment angle both decrease in the inner 5 kpc. Such misaligned and twisted velocity fields are a hallmark of triaxiality, indicating that M87 is not an axisymmetrically shaped galaxy. Triaxial Schwarzschild orbit modeling with more than 4000 observational constraints enabled us to determine simultaneously the shape and mass parameters. The models incorporate a radially declining profile for the stellar mass-to-light ratio suggested by stellar population studies. We find that M87 is strongly triaxial, with ratios of $p=0.845$ for the middle-to-long principal axes and $q=0.722$ for the short-to-long principal axes, and determine the black hole mass to be $(5.37^{+0.37}_{-0.25}\pm 0.22)\times 10^9 M_\odot$, where the second error indicates the systematic uncertainty associated with the distance to M87.