Scribd
Upload
54 views

Advanced Extragalactic Astrophysics - Exercise I

1) The document analyzes the Lyman break technique for identifying high-redshift galaxies using different filter sets. It calculates the redshifts at which galaxies would drop out of different filter bands due to the Lyman break. The most distant detectable galaxy would have a redshift of 10.18 and be invisible in all filters with current technology. 2) It describes fitting a relation between the Sersic index n and the parameter β by numerically solving an equation involving the incomplete gamma function. Plotting the results shows a better fit for n values between 0.5-10. 3) It examines the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies using optical and infrared photometry from public datasets. Correlations are seen between velocity dispersion

Uploaded by

Simón Ángel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
54 views

Advanced Extragalactic Astrophysics - Exercise I

1) The document analyzes the Lyman break technique for identifying high-redshift galaxies using different filter sets. It calculates the redshifts at which galaxies would drop out of different filter bands due to the Lyman break. The most distant detectable galaxy would have a redshift of 10.18 and be invisible in all filters with current technology. 2) It describes fitting a relation between the Sersic index n and the parameter β by numerically solving an equation involving the incomplete gamma function. Plotting the results shows a better fit for n values between 0.5-10. 3) It examines the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies using optical and infrared photometry from public datasets. Correlations are seen between velocity dispersion

Uploaded by

Simón Ángel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Advanced Extragalactic Astrophysics Exercise I

Simon Angel
May 6, 2014

Exercise 1

With the set of lters of CFHT MegaCam and WIRCam, ugriz YHJKs , and the nal (convolved
with optical system, mirror and detector efciency) response curves of the optical lters1 , I used

the relation 1 + z = o /e , where z is cosmological redshift, e = 912 A is the rest-frame wavelength for the Lyman break, and o is the red limit of the lters. Assuming that there is no ux
after the Lyman break, the redshifts at which the source would be invisible for each lter are tabulated in table 1. So, in principle, an object visible in the infrared WIRCam lters but invisible
Filter
u
g
r
i
z

Red limit (A)


5500
6060
7200
8742,5
10200

Drop-out redshift
5,03
5,64
6,89
8,58
10,18

Table 1
in z is, at least, at redshift 10,18. The limitation, of course, the distance. A rough estimate (using
d cz/H0 , where H0 is Hubbles parameter today and c is the speed of light) yields a distance d to
that object of 50 Gpc. Given that this is actually an underestimate, that object would be invisible
in all lters with todays instrumentation and not only because of Lyman break. Drop-outs of u,
g, and r would be visible in surveys such as CFHTLS+WIRDS. In any case, spectroscopic information should be added in order to conrm the drop-out candidates or not.
James Webb Space Telescope will have an imager with tunable lter (0,6 to 5 m), so it would have
excellent resolution to identify drop-outs, with a sensitivity of 11,4 nJy at AB mag of 28,8 (Gardner
et al.(2006). The same publications claims that it could be possible to obtain ultra deep elds up
to AB = 31, and that the Lyman break technique will identify objects at increasing redshifts up to
z = 20 or higher.
1

http://www2.cadc-ccda.hia-iha.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/en/megapipe/docs/filt.html, I used the new i


lter.

Exercise 2

From the denition of Re ,

Re

I(R)R dR = 2 2

(1)

I(R)R dR.
0

Following Ciotti & Bertin (1999), it can be found that (n) is the solution of
(2n, ) =

(2n)
,
2

(2)

where () is the gamma function and (, x > 0) is the incomplete gamma function ((, ) = ()).
This has to be solved numerically, since there is not analytical formula for the incomplete gamma
function. I used SciPys gammaincinv to nd the relation, as it follows:
Create an array of ns from 0,1 to 10 with a step of 0,1.
Using the inverse incomplete gamma function, I found such that eq. 2 holds for each n.
Plot as a function of n.
The results can be seen in gure 1. In gure 1a is the tted (n) relation, with coefcients (n)
2n + 0.313, similar to the relation in the assignment. Nevertheless, the normalised residuals of
gure 1b (normalised to the values of ) show that values near zero have non-linear behaviour,
so re-setting the n range from 0,5 to 10 yields the results of gure 2, with lower residuals, and
therefore better t (and closer to the relation in the assignment). The relation also holds for values
of n higher than 10, but those are unrealistic values.

20

7
6

Normalised residuals

15

10

5
4
3
2
1

0
0

1.99727522666n-0.312971093053
2

0
0

10

(a)

n
(b)

Figure 1

10

20

0.030
0.025

Normalised residuals

15

10

0.020
0.015
0.010
0.005
0.000

0
0

1.99891206359n-0.324038308485
2

0.005
0

10

(a)

10

(b)

Figure 2

Exercise 3

I used the public data available at Vizier by La Barbera et al.(2008), with data from SDSS (r band)
and UKIDSS (K band). The resulting optical Fundamental Plane and two projections are present
in gure 3. The clearest correlation is one of the projections of the plane: half-light radius effective surface brightness, given that both parameters are driven by size of the galaxy, because
bigger galaxies are brighter and have larger half-light radius. This correlation (gure 3c) shows a
spread that can be parametrised with the velocity dispersion, which can serve as a proxy for galaxy
compactness: for xed half-light radius, higher galaxies (meaning higher enclosed mass) have
brighter , which accounts for crowding, therefore stellar density (assuming that, statistically, all
stars have the same brightness, meaning more stars more light). The correlation between HLR
(and, therefore, ) and is not as clear as the previous one, and can be seen in gure 3a.
The plots of gure 3 were constructing using r band photometry. The Fundamental Plane built
with infrared photometry compared to optical photometry is plotted in gure 4. Those planes are
perpendicular, statistically because of translation, a relation which is not held point by point (gure 4, right panel). This may be an indicator of different galactic stellar populations concentrated
near the centre of the galaxy. Still, both held the same spread parametrised by .

2:55
2:50
2:45
2:40
2:35
2:30
2:25
2:20
2:15
2:10
2:05
2:00
1:95

[mag arcsec2]

2:2
2:4
log [km s1]

30
2
20
c ]
arcse
0 [mag 1
2
log R [kp
c]

2:0

2:0

2:2
2:4
log [km s1]

28

30
[mag

20
arcsec 2
]

(a)

26
24
22
20
18

2
1
[kpc]
log R

3
16
0

(b)

1
2
log R [kpc]

log [km s1]

30

(c)

[mag arcsec2]

30

30

2:0

2:2
2:4
log [km s1]

r
K

20
[mag
arcsec 2
]

2:55
2:50
2:45
2:40
2:35
2:30
2:25
2:20
2:15
2:10
2:05
2:00
1:95

25

20

15

2
1
[k p c ]
l og R

(a)

1
2
log R [kpc]
(b)

Figure 4

log [km s1]

Figure 3

You might also like