A Panchromatic View of Galaxies
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More About This Title A Panchromatic View of Galaxies

English

Describing how to investigate all kinds of galaxies through a multifrequency analysis, this text is divided into three different sections. The first describes the data currently available at different frequencies, from X-rays to UV, optical, infrared and radio millimetric and centimetric, while explaining their physical meaning. In the second section, the author explains how these data can be used to determine physical parameters and quantities, such as mass and temperature. The final section is devoted to describing how the derived quantities can be used in a multifrequency analysis to study such physical processes as the star formation cycle and constrain models of galaxy evolution.
As a result, observers will be able to interpret galaxies and their structure.

English

Alessandro Boselli is Head of the group Physics of Galaxies at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France. He got his academic degree in physics at the Universita di Milano (Italy) and his PhD in astrophysics at the Observatoire de Paris-Meudon (France) under the supervision of J. Lequeux. He then worked at the Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg (Germany). His research activity is focused on the study of the formation and evolution of galaxies.

English

Preface XIII

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Galaxies 1

1.2 A Multifrequency Approach 4

1.3 The Purpose of this Book 10

Part One Emitting Sources and Radiative Processes in Galaxies 15

2 X-ray 17

2.1 Continuum 17

2.1.1 Discrete Sources 18

2.1.2 X-ray Emission in Active Galaxies 20

2.1.3 Hot Gas 21

3 UV-Optical-NIR 25

3.1 Continuum: Stellar Emission 26

3.2 Emission Lines 28

3.2.1 Hydrogen Lines 32

3.2.2 Metals 34

3.3 Absorption Lines 35

3.3.1 Hydrogen Lines 37

3.3.2 Other Elements 38

3.4 Molecular Lines 39

3.4.1 H2 Near-Infrared Emission Lines 39

3.4.2 H2 UV Absorption Lines 39

4 The Infrared 41

4.1 Continuum: Dust Emission 42

4.2 Emission Lines 44

4.2.1 PAHs 44

4.2.2 Cooling Lines in PDR 45

4.2.3 H2 Lines 47

4.2.4 Dust Absorption of Lyα Scattered Photons 49

5 Millimeter and Centimeter Radio 51

5.1 Continuum 51

5.1.1 Free–Free Emission 52

5.1.2 Synchrotron Emission 53

5.1.3 Dust Emission 53

5.2 Emission Lines 54

5.2.1 Molecular Lines 54

5.2.2 HI 55

5.3 Absorption Lines 57

5.3.1 HI 57

Part Two Derived Quantities 59

6 Properties of the Hot X-ray Emitting Gas 61

6.1 X-ray Luminosity 61

6.2 Gas Temperature 61

7 Dust Properties 63

7.1 The Far-IR Luminosity 63

7.2 Dust Mass and Temperature 65

8 Radio Properties 71

8.1 Determining the Contribution of the Different Radio Components 71

8.1.1 Synchrotron vs. Free–Free Radio Emission in the Centimeter Domain 71

8.1.2 The Emission of the Cold Dust Component at λ _ 1.5mm 72

8.2 The Radio Luminosity 74

9 The Spectral Energy Distribution 77

9.1 The Emission in the UV to Near-Infrared Spectral Domain 79

9.1.1 UV, Optical, and Near-IR Colors 81

9.1.2 Fitting SEDs with Population Synthesis Models 83

9.2 The Dust Emission in the Infrared Domain 84

9.2.1 Mid- and Far-Infrared Colors 86

9.3 The Thermal and Nonthermal Radio Emission 90

10 Spectral Features 91

10.1 Galaxy Characterization through Emission and Absorption Lines 91

10.1.1 Classification of the Nuclear Activity 92

10.1.2 Classification of Post-Starburst and Post-Star-Forming Galaxies 92

10.1.3 Line Diagnostics 95

10.2 Gas Metallicity from Emission Lines 101

10.3 Stellar Age and Metallicity from Absorption Lines 103

11 Gas Properties 107

11.1 Gas Density, Mass, and Temperature 107

11.1.1 The Atomic HI Mass 108

11.1.2 The Molecular H2 Mass 115

12 Dust Extinction 125

12.1 Galactic Extinction 126

12.1.1 Extinction Curve 127

12.2 Internal Attenuation 132

12.2.1 Attenuation of the Emission Lines 133

12.2.2 Attenuation of the Stellar Continuum 134

13 Star Formation Tracers 143

13.1 The Initial Mass Function 143

13.2 The Star Formation Rate 144

13.3 The Birthrate Parameter and the Specific Star Formation Rate 146

13.4 The Star Formation Efficiency and the Gas Consumption Time Scale 147

13.5 Hydrogen Emission Lines 147

13.6 UV Stellar Continuum 151

13.7 Infrared 152

13.7.1 Integrated Infrared Luminosity 152

13.7.2 Monochromatic Infrared Luminosities 153

13.8 Radio Continuum 153

13.9 Other Indicators 155

13.9.1 The X-ray Luminosity 155

13.9.2 Forbidden Lines 156

13.9.3 [CII] 157

13.9.4 Radio Recombination Lines 157

13.10 Population Synthesis Models 158

13.10.1 Dating a Star Formation Event 158

14 Light Profiles and Structural Parameters 161

14.1 The Surface Brightness Profile 161

14.1.1 Extended Radial Profiles 161

14.1.2 The Central Surface Brightness Profile of Early-Type Galaxies 162

14.1.3 The Vertical Light Profile of Late-Type Galaxies 166

14.2 Structural Parameters 166

14.2.1 Total Magnitudes, Effective Radii and Surface Brightnesses 166

14.2.2 Bulge to Disk Ratio 167

14.3 Morphological Parameters 168

14.3.1 Concentration Index 168

14.3.2 Asymmetry 168

14.3.3 Clumpiness 169

14.3.4 The Gini Coefficient G and the Second-Order Moment of the Brightest 20% of the Galaxy’s Flux M20 169

15 Stellar and Dynamical Masses 171

15.1 Stellar Mass Determination Using Population Synthesis Models 171

15.2 Dynamical Mass 175

15.2.1 Rotation Curves and the Dark Matter Distribution 177

15.2.2 The Total Mass of Elliptical Galaxies from Kinematical Measurements 184

15.2.3 The Total Mass of Elliptical Galaxies from X-ray Measurements 185

15.2.4 The Mass of the Supermassive Black Hole 187

Part Three Constraining Galaxy Evolution 193

16 Statistical Tools 195

16.1 Galaxy Number Counts 195

16.1.1 Observed Number Counts 197

16.2 Luminosity Function 200

16.2.1 Parametrization of the Luminosity Function 203

16.2.2 Luminosity Distributions and Bivariate Luminosity Functions 204

16.2.3 The Observed Luminosity Functions 205

16.3 Luminosity Density 209

16.3.1 The Cosmic Star Formation History and Build Up of the Stellar Mass 211

17 Scaling Relations 215

17.1 Spectrophotometric Relations 216

17.1.1 The Color–Magnitude and Color–Color Relations 216

17.1.2 The Mass–Metallicity Relation 218

17.1.3 The Mass–Gas Relation 220

17.1.4 The Mass–Star Formation Rate Relation 222

17.2 Structural Relations 223

17.2.1 The Surface Brightness–Absolute Magnitude Relation 223

17.2.2 The Kormendy Relation 224

17.3 Kinematical Relations 224

17.3.1 The Tully–Fisher Relation 225

17.3.2 The Faber–Jackson Relation and the Fundamental Plane 228

17.3.3 The k-Space 230

17.4 Supermassive Black Hole Scaling Relations 231

18 Matter Cycle in Galaxies 235

18.1 The Star Formation Process 236

18.1.1 The Schmidt Law 236

18.2 Feedback 239

18.2.1 The Feedback of AGNs 239

18.2.2 The Feedback of Massive Stars 242

19 The Role of the Environment onGalaxy Evolution 245

19.1 Tracers of Different Environments 245

19.1.1 Detection of High-Density Regions 246

19.1.2 Other Quantitative Tracers of High-Density Environments 249

19.2 Measuring the Induced Perturbations 250

19.2.1 Other Tracers of Induced Perturbations 253

Appendix A Photometric Redshifts and K-Corrections 255

A.1 The Photometric Redshifts 255

A.1.1 UV-Optical-Near-Infrared Photo-z 255

A.1.2 Far Infrared-Radio Continuum Photo-z 258

A.2 The K-Correction 258

Appendix B Broad Band Photometry 263

B.1 Photometric Systems 263

Appendix C Physical and Astronomical Constants and Unit Conversions 267

References 269

Index 319

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“This book is well-sourced and draws widely on the literature, giving access to a wide range of examples of use of the methods the author advocates – and making the book an especially useful resource for those starting in the field.”  (Astronomy & Geophysics, 1 August 2012)

 

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