0000000000302966
AUTHOR
A. Vazdekis
Young ages and other intriguing properties of massive compact galaxies in the local Universe
We characterize the kinematics, morphology, stellar populations and star formation histories of a sample of massive compact galaxies in the nearby Universe, which might provide a closer look at the nature of their high-redshift (z >rsim 1.0) massive counterparts. We find that nearby compact massive objects show elongated morphologies and are fast rotators. New high-quality long-slit spectra show that they have young mean luminosity-weighted ages (2 Gyr) and metallicities solar or above ([Z/H] >rsim 0.0). No significant stellar population gradients are found. The analysis of their star formation histories suggests that these objects have experienced recently enormous bursts which, in some c…
CGCG 480-022: A Distant Lonesome Merger?
[EN]We present a complete analysis, which includes morphology, kinematics, stellar populations, and N-body simulations, of CGCG 480-022, the most distant (cz = 14,317 km s-1) isolated galaxy studied so far in such detail. The results all support the hypothesis that this galaxy has suffered a major merger event with a companion of ~0.1 times its mass. Morphology reveals the presence of a circumnuclear ring and possibly further ring debris. The radial velocity curve looks symmetrical, while the velocity dispersion increases with radius, reaching values that do not correspond to a virialized system. Moreover, this galaxy deviates significantly from the fundamental plane and the Faber-Jackson r…
MILES extended: Stellar population synthesis models from the optical to the infrared
We present the first single-burst stellar population models which covers the optical and the infrared wavelength range between 3500 and 50000 Angstrom and which are exclusively based on empirical stellar spectra. To obtain these joint models, we combined the extended MILES models in the optical with our new infrared models that are based on the IRTF (Infrared Telescope Facility) library. The latter are available only for a limited range in terms of both age and metallicity. Our combined single-burst stellar population models were calculated for ages larger than 1 Gyr, for metallicities between [Fe/H] = -0.40 and 0.26, for initial mass functions of various types and slopes, and on the basis …
MIUSCAT: extended MILES spectral coverage - II. Constraints from optical photometry
In the present work we show a comprehensive comparison of our new stellar population synthesis MIUSCAT models with photometric data of globular clusters and early-type galaxies. The models compare remarkably well with the colours of Milky Way globular clusters in the optical range. Likewise, the colours of M31 globular clusters can also be explained by the models by assuming younger ages then their Galactic counterparts. When compared with quiescent galaxies we reproduce the colour evolution at intermediate redshift. On the other hand we find that the colour relations of nearby early-type galaxies are still a challenge for present-day stellar population synthesis models. We investigate a nu…
MIUSCAT: extended MILES spectral coverage. I. Stellar populations synthesis models
We extend the spectral range of our stellar population synthesis models based on the MILES and CaT empirical stellar spectral libraries. For this purpose we combine these two libraries with the Indo-U.S. to construct composite stellar spectra to feed our models. The spectral energy distributions (SEDs) computed with these models and the originally published models are combined to construct composite SEDs for single-age, single-metallicity stellar populations (SSPs) covering the range 3465 - 9469\AA at moderately high, and uniform, resolution (FWHM=2.51\AA). The colours derived from these SSP SEDs provide good fits to Galactic globular cluster data. We find that the colours involving redder …
Structure and dynamics of massive galaxies at z=0 in a fully cosmological simulation
In this contribution we present the results of an Eulerian adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) hydrodynamical and N-body simulation in a ΛCDM cosmology. The simulation used was performed with the cosmological code MASCLET (Quilis et al. 2004). Galaxies have been identified in the simulation outputs by means of an adaptive friends of friends algorithm applied to the star particles. To give light to our virtual galaxies we have assigned a spectrum to each stellar particle using the MIUSCAT stellar population models (Vazdekis et al. 2012; Ricciardelli et al. 2012).