Investigations of HeII Ly{alpha} (304{AA} rest-frame) absorption toward a half-dozen quasars at z~3-4 have demonstrated the great potential of helium studies of the intergalactic medium, but the current critically small sample size of clean sightlines for the HeII Gunn-Peterson test limits confidence in cosmological inferences, and a larger sample is required. Although the unobscured quasar sightlines to high redshift are extremely rare, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR6 provides thousands of z>2.8 quasars. We have cross-correlated these SDSS quasars with the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) GR2/GR3 to establish a catalog of 200 higher-confidence (~70% secure) cases of quasars at z=2.8-5.1 potentially having surviving far-UV (rest-frame) flux. We also catalog another 112 likely far-UV-bright quasars from GALEX cross-correlation with other (non-SDSS) quasar compilations. Reconnaissance UV prism observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of 24 of our SDSS/GALEX candidates confirm 12 as detected in the far-UV, with at least nine having flux extending to very near the HeII break; with refinements our success rate is even higher. Our SDSS/GALEX selection approach is thereby confirmed to be an order of magnitude more efficient than previous HeII quasar searches, more than doubles the number of spectroscopically confirmed clean sightlines to high redshift, and provides a resource list of hundreds of high-confidence sightlines for upcoming HeII and other far-UV studies from the HST. Our reconnaissance HST prism spectra suggest some far-UV diversity, confirming the need to obtain a large sample of independent quasar sightlines across a broad redshift range to assess such issues as the epoch(s) of helium reionization, while averaging over individual-object pathology and/or cosmic variance.
This catalogue is a supplement of the Ultraviolet Bright Star Spectrophotometric Catalogue (=III/39A). It contains observations carried out by the S2/68 Ultraviolet Sky Survey Telescope (UVSST) aboard the ESRO satellite TD-1. The data presented in this supplement were obtained during the second and third observation periods, which lasted from 19 February 1973 to 30 September 1973 and from 16 February to 6 May 1974. The S2/68 experiment has been described by Boksenberg et al. (=1973MNRAS.163..291B) Owing to the optical scanning mode, most of the stars observed during the first observational period, the spectra of which are included in the "Ultraviolet Bright-Star Spectrophotometric Catalogue", were seen again by the telescope. This supplement, however, has been limited to the spectra of stars that were not observed during the first period. The data reduction and selection criteria are identical to those underlying the main Catalogue and hence the data presented in the Supplement are directly comparable with those in the main Catalogue. The Supplement contains data for 435 stars. For a statistical summary of the observed stars, see the tables I and II in the published version of the Supplement. The spectrum scanning itself was achieved by the movement of a star image across the wide entrance slot of the spectrophotometer, which caused the corresponding spectrum image to pass over the three exit slits in the direction of dispersion. The motion of the primary image during each detector integration interval (0.148 s) was equivalent to 19.4 A, depending on the channel. The wavelength range covered was 1350 - 2550 A. The passband of the photometer channel, defined by a glass transmission filter and the photocathode tube response, was centered at 2740 A and had a full width at half height of 310 A.
We measure the UV-continuum slope {beta} for over 4000 high-redshift galaxies over a wide range of redshifts z~4-8 and luminosities from the HST HUDF/XDF, HUDF09-1, HUDF09-2, ERS, CANDELS-N, and CANDELS-S data sets. Our new {beta} results reach very faint levels at z~4 (-15.5 mag: 0.006 L_z=3_^*^), z~5 (-16.5 mag: 0.014 L_z=3_^*^), and z~6 and z~7 (-17 mag: 0.025 L_z=3_^*^). Inconsistencies between previous studies led us to conduct a comprehensive review of systematic errors and develop a new technique for measuring {beta} that is robust against biases that arise from the impact of noise. We demonstrate, by object-by-object comparisons, that all previous studies, including our own and those done on the latest HUDF12 data set, suffered from small systematic errors in {beta}. We find that after correcting for the systematic errors (typically {Delta}{beta}~0.1-0.2) all {beta} results at z~7 from different groups are in excellent agreement. The mean {beta} we measure for faint (-18 mag: 0.1L_z=3_^*^) z~4, z~5, z~6, and z~7 galaxies is -2.03+/-0.03+/-0.06 (random and systematic errors), -2.14+/-0.06+/-0.06, -2.24+/-0.11+/-0.08, and -2.30+/-0.18+/-0.13, respectively. Our new {beta} values are redder than we have reported in the past, but bluer than other recent results. Our previously reported trend of bluer {beta}'s at lower luminosities is confirmed, as is the evolution to bluer {beta}'s at high redshifts. {beta} appears to show only a mild luminosity dependence faintward of M_UV, AB_~-19 mag, suggesting that the mean {beta} asymptotes to ~-2.2 to -2.4 for faint z>=4 galaxies. At z~7, the observed {beta}'s suggest non-zero, but low dust extinction, and they agree well with values predicted in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations.
We present ultraviolet (UV) follow-up of a sample of potential dwarf galaxy candidates selected for their neutral hydrogen (HI) properties, taking advantage of the low UV background seen by the GALEX satellite and its large and publicly available imaging footprint. The HI clouds, which are drawn from published Galactic Arecibo L-band Feed Array and Arecibo Legacy Fast Arecibo L-band Feed Array HI survey compact cloud catalogs, are selected to be galaxy candidates based on their spatial compactness and non-association with known high-velocity cloud complexes or Galactic HI emission. Based on a comparison of their UV characteristics to those of known dwarf galaxies, half (48%) of the compact HI clouds have at least one potential stellar counterpart with UV properties similar to those of nearby dwarf galaxies. If they are galaxies, then the star formation rates, HI masses, and star formation efficiencies of these systems follow the trends seen for much larger galaxies. The presence of UV emission is an efficient method to identify the best targets for spectroscopic follow-up, which is necessary to prove that the stars are associated with compact HI. Furthermore, searches of this nature help to refine the salient HI properties of likely dwarfs (even beyond the Local Group). In particular, HI compact clouds considered to be velocity outliers relative to their neighbor HI clouds have the most significant detection rate of single, appropriate UV counterparts. Correcting for the sky coverage of the two all-Arecibo sky surveys yielding the compact HI clouds, these results may imply the presence of potentially hundreds of new tiny galaxies across the entire sky.
We present the ultraviolet magnitudes for over three million stars in the LAMOST survey, in which 2,202,116 stars are detected by GALEX. For 889,235 undetected stars, we develop a method to estimate their upper limit magnitudes. The distribution of (FUV-NUV) shows that the color declines with increasing effective temperature for stars hotter than 7000K in our sample, while the trend disappears for the cooler stars due to upper atmosphere emission from the regions higher than their photospheres. For stars with valid stellar parameters, we calculate the UV excesses with synthetic model spectra, and find that the (FUV - NUV) versus R'_FUV_ can be fitted with a linear relation and late-type dwarfs tend to have high UV excesses. There are 87,178 and 1,498,103 stars detected more than once in the visit exposures of GALEX in the FUV and NUV, respectively. We make use of the quantified photometric errors to determine statistical properties of the UV variation, including intrinsic variability and the structure function on the timescale of days. The overall occurrence of possible false positives is below 1.3% in our sample. UV absolute magnitudes are calculated for stars with valid parallaxes, which could serve as a possible reference frame in the NUV. We conclude that the colors related to UV provide good criteria to distinguish between M giants and M dwarfs, and the variability of RR Lyrae stars in our sample is stronger than that of other A and F stars.
UV-FIR obs. of post-starburst galaxies & dust masses
Short Name:
J/ApJ/879/131
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We derive dust masses (M_dust_) from the spectral energy distributions of 58 post-starburst galaxies (PSBs). There is an anticorrelation between specific dust mass (M_dust_/M_*_) and the time elapsed since the starburst ended, indicating that dust was either destroyed, expelled, or rendered undetectable over the ~1Gyr after the burst. The M_dust_/M_*_ depletion timescale, 205_-37_^+58^Myr, is consistent with that of the CO-traced M_H2_/M_*_, suggesting that dust and gas are altered via the same process. Extrapolating these trends leads to the M_dust_/M_*_ and M_H2_/M_*_ values of early-type galaxies (ETGs) within 1-2Gyr, a timescale consistent with the evolution of other PSB properties into ETGs. Comparing Mdust and M_H2_ for PSBs yields a calibration, log M_H2_=0.45logM_dust_+6.02, that allows us to place 33 PSBs on the Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) plane, {Sigma}SFR-{Sigma}M_H2_. Over the first ~200-300Myr, the PSBs evolve down and off of the KS relation, as their star formation rate (SFR) decreases more rapidly than M_H2_. Afterwards, M_H2_ continues to decline whereas the SFR levels off. These trends suggest that the star formation efficiency bottoms out at 10^-11^/yr and will rise to ETG levels within 0.5-1.1Gyr afterwards. The SFR decline after the burst is likely due to the absence of gas denser than the CO-traced H2. The mechanism of the M_dust_/M_*_ and M_H2_/M_*_ decline, whose timescale suggests active galactic nucleus/low-ionization nuclear emission-line region feedback, may also be preventing the large CO-traced molecular gas reservoirs from collapsing and forming denser star-forming clouds.
The documentation is mostly adapted from the "Documentation for the Machine-Readable Version of A catalog of Ultraviolet Interstellar Extinction Excesses for 1415 Stars" by Wayne H. Warren Jr., May 1986, National Space Science Data Center NSSDC/WDC-A-R&S 86-05 This document describes the machine-readable version of the catalog as it is currently being distributed from the Astronomical Data Centers. It is intended to enable users to read and process the data without problems and guesswork, but it is not intended to replace the original published paper, which users should study before processing the data. The format described below is very similar to that given on page 431 of the source reference, but some modifications were made at the ADC (with the consent of the authors) to effect uniformity.
The nature of the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is still a mystery. While plausible candidates are known for both the single-degenerate and double-degenerate models, the observed numbers fall significantly short of what is required to reproduce the SNe Ia rate. Some of the most promising single-degenerate Type Ia progenitors are recurrent novae and super-soft sources (SSS). White dwarfs (WDs) with higher mass transfer rates can also be SN Ia progenitors. For these rapidly accreting white dwarfs (RAWDs), more material than is needed for steady burning accretes on the WD, and extends the WD's photosphere. Unlike SSS, such objects will likely not be detectable at soft X-ray energies, but will be bright at longer wavelengths, such as the far-ultraviolet (UV). Possible examples include LMC N66 and the V Sagittae stars. We present a survey using multi-object spectrographs looking for RAWDs in the central core of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), from objects selected to be bright in the far-UV and with blue far UV-V colors. While we find some unusual objects, and recover known planetary nebula and Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars, we detect no candidate RAWD. The upper limits from this non-detection depend on our expectations of what an RAWD should look like, as well assumptions about the internal extinction of the SMC. Assuming they resemble LMC N66 or fainter versions of WR stars we set an upper limit of 10-14 RAWDs in the SMC. However, our survey is unlikely to detect objects like V Sge, and hence we cannot set meaningful upper limits if RAWDs generally resemble V Sge.
We have studied the performance of the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope payload on AstroSat and derived a calibration of the far-ultraviolet (FUV) and near-ultraviolet (NUV) instruments on board. We find that the sensitivity of both the FUV and NUV channels is as expected from ground calibrations, with the FUV effective area about 35 per cent and the NUV effective area about the same as that of GALEX. The point spread function of the instrument is on the order of 1.2-1.6''. We have found that pixel-to-pixel variations in the sensitivity are less than 10 per cent with spacecraft motion compensating for most of the flat-field variations. We derived a distortion correction but recommend that it be applied post-processing as part of an astrometric solution.
We present a study of six open clusters (Berkeley 67, King 2, NGC 2420, NGC 2477, NGC 2682 and NGC 6940) using the Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) aboard ASTROSAT and Gaia EDR3. We present their Gaia EDR3 membership catalogues and UV photometric catalogues along with membership probability. We used a supervised machine learning algorithm along with a Gaussian mixture model and used combinations of astrometric, photometric and systematic parameters to train the algorithm. We classified the stars as members, candidates and field using two such combinations. This generic technique is robust, reproducible, versatile in various cluster environments and is applicable to other data-sets. We could detect 200-2500 additional members using this method with respect to Gaia DR2 studies. We estimated cluster properties such as mean space velocities, distances, number of members and core radii. We detected 3 to 700 member stars, which include blue stragglers, main-sequence and red giants in various UVIT images of six clusters. We created UV-Optical colour-magnitude diagrams to find that majority of the sources in NGC 2682 and a few in NGC 2420, NGC 2477 and NGC 6940 showed excess UV flux. NGC 2682 images have 10 white dwarf detections in far-UV. The massive cluster NGC 2477 has 92/576 members detected in the far-UV/near-UV, which will be useful to study the UV properties of stars in the extended turn-off and in various evolutionary stages from main-sequence to red clump. Future studies will carry out panchromatic analysis of noteworthy members detected in this study.
