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The HERschel Inventory of the Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Magellanic Clouds, a HERschel Open Time Key Program

We present an overview or the HERschel Inventory of The Agents of Galaxy Evolution (HERITAGE) in the Magellanic Clouds project, which is a Herschel Space Observatory open time key program. We mapped the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) at 100, 160, 250, 350, and 500 micron with the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) and Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) instruments on board Herschel using the SPIRE/PACS parallel mode. The overriding science goal of HERITAGE is to study the life cycle of matter as traced by dust in the LMC and SMC. The far-infrared and submillimeter emission is an effective tracer of the interstellar medium (ISM) dust, the most deeply embedded young stellar objects (YSOs), and the dust ejected by the most massive stars. We describe in detail the data processing, particularly for the PACS data, which required some custom steps because of the large angular extent of a single observational unit and overall the large amount of data to be processed as an ensemble. We report total global fluxes for LMC and SMC and demonstrate their agreement with measurements by prior missions. The HERITAGE maps of the LMC and SMC are dominated by the ISM dust emission and bear most resemblance to the tracers of ISM gas rather than the stellar content of the galaxies. We describe the point source extraction processing and the critetia used to establish a catalog for each waveband for the HERITAGE program. The 250 micron band is the most sensitive and the source catalogs for this band have approx. 25,000 objects for the LMC and approx. 5500 objects for the SMC. These data enable studies of ISM dust properties, submillimeter excess dust emission, dust-to-gas ratio, Class 0 YSO candidates, dusty massive evolved stars, supemova remnants (including SN1987A), H II regions, and dust evolution in the LMC and SMC. All images and catalogs are delivered to the Herschel Science Center as part of the conummity support aspects of the project. These HERITAGE images and catalogs provide an excellent basis for future research and follow up with other facilities.

AGENTS↗

Surveying Galaxy Evolution in the Far-Infrared: A Far-Infrared All-Sky Survey Concept

Half of the total luminosity in the Universe is emitted at rest wavelengths approximately 80-100 microns. At the highest known galaxy redshifts (z greater than or equal to 6) this energy is redshifted to approximately 600 microns. Quantifying the evolution of galaxies at these wavelengths is crucial to our understanding of the formation of structure in the Universe following the big bang. Surveying the whole sky will find the rare and unique objects, enabling follow-up observations. SIRCE, the Survey of Infrared Cosmic Evolution, is such a mission concept under study at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. A helium-cooled telescope with ultrasensitive detectors can image the whole sky to the confusion limit in 6 months. Multiple wavelength bands permit the extraction of photometric redshifts, while a large telescope yields a low confusion limit. We discuss the implications of such a survey for galaxy formation and evolution, large-scale structure, star formation, and the structure of interstellar dust.

Benford, D. J.↗

Probing Galaxy Evolution in Massive Clusters Using ACT and DES: Splashback as a Cosmic Clock

We measure the projected number density profiles of galaxies and the splashback feature in clusters selected by the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect from the Advanced Atacama Cosmology Telescope (AdvACT) survey using galaxies observed by the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The splashback radius is consistent with CDM-only simulations and is located at-+-h2.4 Mpc0.40.31. We split the galaxies on color and find significant differences in their profile shapes. Red and green-valley galaxies show a splashback-like minimum in their slope profile consistent with theory, while the bluest galaxies show a weak feature at a smaller radius. We develop a mapping of galaxies to subhalos in simulations and assign colors based on infall time onto their hosts. We find that the shift in location of the steepest slope and different profile shapes can be mapped to the average time of infall of galaxies of different colors. The steepest slope traces a discontinuity in the phase space of dark matter halos. By relating spatial profiles to infall time, we can use splashback as a clock to understand galaxy quenching. We find that red galaxies have on average been in clusters over 3.2 Gyr, green galaxies about 2.2 Gyr, while blue galaxies have been accreted most recently and have not reached apocenter. Using the full radial profiles, we fit a simple quenching model and find that the onset of galaxy quenching occurs after a delay of about a gigayear and that galaxies quench rapidly thereafter with an exponential timescale of 0.6 Gyr.

Galaxy clusters↗

Evidence for an extragalactic component of the far-ultraviolet background and constraints on galaxy evolution for z between 0.1 and 0.6

A sounding rocket experiment that measured the power spectrum of small-scale fluctuations in the far-UV background is described. Evidence is presented that these fluctuations are the integrated light from distant galaxies. If this result is used as an upper limit to the integrated light from galaxies, it provides a constraint on the mean UV luminosity density in the redshift range between 0.1 and 0.6 of L(gal) less than 7 x 10 to the 7th solar luminosities/Mpc. When compared to estimates of the present UV luminosity density, this places a strong constraint on the far-UV evolution of galaxies in the last one-third of a Hubble time. This constraint can be interpreted as a limit on the average past star formation rate relative to the present if dust obscuration was not significantly greater in the past. An upper limit to the average star formation rate is derived.

Martin, Christopher↗

UV Spectral Diagnostics of Galaxy Evolution

New instrumentation now enable deep spectral surveys of galaxies at younger ages. At a redshift, z=1, all galaxies are less than 6 Gyr old and hence, have not yet formed horizontal-branch stars. Also, at z=1, the restframe-UV comes into view, and with it, a new set of spectral diagnostics. UV spectral features are especially important because most of the UV flux comes from stars at the main-sequence turnoff (MSTO). Hence, UV spectral diagnostics enable the most recent star formation episode of high-redshift galaxies to be estimated directly from MSTO stars. In preparation for these high-redshift spectral surveys, we are developing UV spectral templates for stellar populations younger than 6 Gyr using UV-optical spectra of stars observed by HST/STIS. We are also starting to supplement these observations with theoretical spectral grids of stars of various metallicities. In this paper, we present a progress report on UV spectral templates and spectral diagnostics.

Heap, Sara R.↗

Global effects of interactions on galaxy evolution

Recent observations of the evolutionary properties of paired and interacting galaxies are reviewed, with special emphasis on their global emission properties and star formation rates. Data at several wavelengths provide strong confirmation of the hypothesis, proposed originally by Larson and Tinsley, that interactions trigger global bursts of star formation in galaxies. The nature and properties of the starbursts, and their overall role in galactic evolution are also discussed.

Kennicutt, Robert C., Jr.↗

Wet compaction to a blue nugget: a critical phase in galaxy evolution

ABSTRACT We utilize high-resolution cosmological simulations to reveal that high-redshift galaxies tend to undergo a robust ‘wet compaction’ event when near a ‘golden’ stellar mass of $\sim \!\!10^{10}\, \rm M_\odot$ . This is a gaseous shrinkage to a compact star-forming phase, a ‘blue nugget’ (BN), followed by central quenching of star formation to a compact passive stellar bulge, a ‘red nugget’ (RN), and a buildup of an extended gaseous disc and ring. Such nuggets are observed at cosmic noon and seed today’s early-type galaxies. The compaction is triggered by a drastic loss of angular momentum due to, e.g. wet mergers, counter-rotating cold streams, or violent disc instability. The BN phase marks drastic transitions in the galaxy structural, compositional, and kinematic properties. The transitions are from star forming to quenched inside-out, from diffuse to compact with an extended disc or ring and a stellar envelope, from dark matter to baryon central dominance, from prolate to oblate stellar shape, from pressure to rotation support, from low to high metallicity, and from supernova to AGN feedback. The central black hole growth, first suppressed by supernova feedback when below the golden mass, is boosted by the compaction, and the black hole keeps growing once the halo is massive enough to lock in the supernova ejecta.

Lapiner, Sharon (ORCID:0009000409733232)↗

Galaxy evolution and formation

Results from the Hawaii imaging and spectroscopy deep survey are discussed. Cumulative galaxy counts now exceed 10 exp 6/deg. To B = 24 the bulk of these galaxies lie at low redshift. Flat spectrum sources constitute a fraction of about 30-40 percent of the sources at B = 24. There are not enough of these to explain the high number counts, but they are an exceedingly interesting population in their own right. It is argued that they are unlikely to lie at z of about 1, but could be either massive starbursters at z of about 2 - 3 or dwarf starbursting galaxies at very low redshift (less than approximately 0.1). In either case they constitute a major episode in galaxy formation.

Cowie, Lennox L.↗

Galaxy evolution and large-scale structure in the far-infrared. I - IRAS pointed observations

Redshifts for 66 galaxies were obtained from a sample of 93 60-micron sources detected serendipitously in 22 IRAS deep pointed observations, covering a total area of 18.4 sq deg. The flux density limit of this survey is 150 mJy, 4 times fainter than the IRAS Point Source Catalog (PSC). The luminosity function is similar in shape with those previously published for samples selected from the PSC, with a median redshift of 0.048 for the fainter sample, but shifted to higher space densities. There is evidence that some of the excess number counts in the deeper sample can be explained in terms of a large-scale density enhancement beyond the Pavo-Indus supercluster. In addition, the faintest counts in the new sample confirm the result of Hacking et al. (1989) that faint IRAS 60-micron source counts lie significantly in excess of an extrapolation of the PSC counts assuming no luminosity or density evolution.

Lonsdale, Carol J.↗

Diffuse X-ray emission from the NGC 2300 group of galaxies - Implications for dark matter and galaxy evolution in small groups

The discovery of diffuse X-ray emission from the NGC 2300 group of galaxies using the ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter is reported. The gas distributions is roughly symmetric and extends to a radius of at least 0.2/h(50) Mpc. A Raymond-Smith hot plasma model provides an excellent fit the X-ray spectrum with a best-fit value temperature of 0.9 + -/15 or - 0.14 keV and abundance 0.06 + 0/.12 or - 0.05 solar. The assumption of gravitational confinement leads to a total mass of the group of 3.0 + 0.4 or - 0.5 x 10 exp 13 solar. Baryons can reasonably account for 4 percent of this mass, and errors could push this number not higher than 10-15 percent. This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that dark matter dominates small groups such as this one. The intragroup medium in this system has the lowest metal abundance yet found in diffuse gas in a group or cluster.

Mulchaey, John S.↗