Search

We investigate the group-scale environment of 15 luminous quasars (luminosity L 3000 > 1046 erg s−1) from the Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey (CUBS) at redshift z ≈ 1. Using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer integral field spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope, we conduct a deep galaxy redshift survey in the CUBS quasar fields to identify group members and measure the physical properties of individual galaxies and galaxy groups. We find that the CUBS quasars reside in diverse environments. The majority (11 out of 15) of the CUBS quasars reside in overdense environments with typical halo masses exceeding 1013 M ⊙, while the remaining quasars reside in moderate-size galaxy groups. No correlation is observed between overdensity and redshift, black hole (BH) mass, or luminosity. Radio-loud quasars (5 out of 15 CUBS quasars) are more likely to be in overdense environments than their radio-quiet counterparts in the sample, consistent with the mean trends from previous statistical observations and clustering analyses. Nonetheless, we also observe radio-loud quasars in moderate groups and radio-quiet quasars in overdense environments, indicating a large scatter in the connection between radio properties and environment. We find that the most UV luminous quasars might be outliers in the stellar mass-to-halo mass relations or may represent departures from the standard single-epoch BH relations.

© TheAuthors 2023. Artículo firmado por 29 autores. We thank the anonymous referee for their useful report. This work was supported by the Evolution of Galaxies project, of references AYA2017-88007-C3-1-P, AYA2017-88007-C3-2-P, AYA2018-RTI-096188-BI00, PID2019-107408GB-C41, PID2019-106027GB-C41, PID2021-122544NB-C41, and MDM-2017-0737 (Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu, CAB), within the Programa estatal de fomento de la investigación científica y técnica de excelencia del Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación (2013-2016) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation/State Agency of Research MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by `ERDF A way of making Europe'. This article is based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, with the Willian Herschel Telescope (WHT) at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma and on observations at Kitt Peak National Observatory, NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab Prop. ID: 2018A-0056; PI: Gonzalez-Serrano, J.I.), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and operated by the California Institute of Technology. J.N. acknowledges the support of the National Science Centre, Poland through the SONATA BIS grant 2018/30/E/ST9/00208. E.B. and I.C.G. acknowledge support from DGAPA-UNAM grant IN113320. M.P. acknowledges the support from the Space Science and Geospatial Institute under the Ethiopian Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT). E.A. and M.P. acknowledge the support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de An, Context. Extragalactic surveys are a key tool for better understanding the evolution of galaxies. Both deep and wide-field surveys serve to provide a clearer emerging picture of the physical processes that take place in and around galaxies, and to identify which of these processes are the most important in shaping the properties of galaxies. Aims. The Lockman Spectroscopic Redshift Survey using Osiris (Lockman-SpReSO) aims to provide one of the most complete optical spectroscopic follow-ups of the far-infrared (FIR) sources detected by the Herschel Space Observatory in the Lockman Hole (LH) field. The optical spectroscopic study of the FIR-selected galaxies supplies valuable information about the relation between fundamental FIR and optical parameters, including extinction, star formation rate, and gas metallicity. In this article, we introduce and provide an in-depth description of the Lockman-SpReSO project and of its early results. Methods. We selected FIR sources from Herschel observations of the central 24 arcmin x24 arcmin of the LH field with an optical counterpart up to 24.5 R_(C)(AB). The sample comprises 956 Herschel FIR sources, plus 188 additional interesting objects in the field. These are point X-ray sources, cataclysmic variable star candidates, high-velocity halo star candidates, radio sources, very red quasi-stellar objects, and optical counterparts of sub-millimetre galaxies. The faint component of the catalogue (R_(C)(AB) ≥ 20) was observed using the OSIRIS instrument on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias in multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) mode. The bright component was observed using two multi-fibre spectrographs: the AF2-WYFFOS at the William Herschel Telescope and the HYDRA instrument at the WYIN telescope. Results. From an input catalogue of 1144 sources, we measured a secure spectroscopic redshift in the range 0.03 ≲ z ≲ 4.96 for 357 sources with at least two identified spectral lines. In addition, for 99 sources that show only one emission, he Spanish Ministry of SciPrograma estatal de fomento de la investigación científica y técnica de excelencia del Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación (2013-2016), Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu, CAB, ERDF "A way of making Europe", National Science Centre, Poland through the SONATA BIS, DGAPA-UNAM, Space Science and Geospatial Institute under the Ethiopian Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT), Centro de Excellence Severo Ochoa, Universidad de La Laguna. Proyecto de Internacionalización y Excelencia, Programa Tomás de Iriarte 2022, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© 2009. The American Astronomical Society. We dedicate this paper to the memory of our six IAC colleagues and friends who met with a fatal accident in Piedra de los Cochinos, Tenerife, in 2007 February. Special thanks go to Maurizio Panniello, whose teachings of python were so important for this paper.This work was supported by the Spanish Programa Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica through project number AYA2006-12955. Facilities: HST (WFPC2); ING:Herschel (INGRID); ING:Newton (WFC), We measure the fraction of galaxies undergoing disk-disk major mergers (∫^mph_m) at intermediate redshifts ((0.35 ≤ z < 0.85) by studying the asymmetry index A of galaxy images. Results are provided for B- and K_s-band absolute magnitude selected samples from the Groth strip in the galaxy origins and young assembly photometric survey. Three sources of systematic error are carefully addressed and quantified. The effects of the large errors in the photometric redshifts and asymmetry indices are corrected with maximum-likelihood techniques. Biases linked to the redshift degradation of the morphological information in the images are treated by measuring asymmetries on images artificially redshifted to a reference redshift of z_d = 0.75. Morphological K-corrections are further constrained by remaining within redshifts where the images sample redward of 4000 angstrom. We find that: (1) our data allow for a robust merger fraction to be provided for a single redshift bin, which we center at z = 0.6. (2) Merger fractions at that z have lower values than previous determinations: ∫_m^mph = 0.045^-0.011_+0.014 for M_B ≤ -20 galaxies, and f_m^mph = 0.031(-0.009)(+0.013) for M(Ks) <= - 23.5 galaxies. And, (3) failure to address the effects of the large observational errors leads to overestimating f_m^mph by factors of 10%-60%. Combining our results with those on other B-band selected samples, and parameterizing the merger fraction evolution as ∫_m^mph (z) = ∫_m^mph (0)(1 + z)^m, we obtain that m = 2.9 ± 0.8, and ∫_m^mph (0) = 0.012 ± 0.004. For an assumed merger timescale between 0.35 0.6 Gyr, these values imply that only 20%-35% of present-day M_B ≤ -20 galaxies have undergone a disk-disk major merger since z ∽ 1. Assuming a K_s -band mass-to- light ratio not varying with luminosity, we infer that the merger rate of galaxies with stellarmass M(star) greater than or similar to 3.5 x 10^10 M_☉ is R_m = 1.6_-0.6^+0.9 x 10^-4 Mpc^-3 Gyr^-1 at z = 0.6. When we compare with previous s, Programa Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica, Miniesterio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), España, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© ESO 2014. This study makes uses of the data provided by the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey (http://califs.caha.es). CALIFA is the first legacy survey being performed at Calar Alto. The CALIFA collaboration would like to thank the IAA-CSIC and MPIA-MPG as major partners of the observatory, and CAHA itself, for the unique access to telescope time and support in manpower and infrastructures. The CALIFA collaboration thanks also the CAHA staff for the dedication to this project. We thank Mike Blanton for helpful discussions on the SDSS survey footprint and for providing the NYU low-z catalogue to the community. CJW acknowledges useful discussion with Nick Scott, Davor Krajnovic and Remco van den Bosch as well as support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. We thank the anonymous referee for a careful reading of the paper and several suggestions that improved its presentation. IM acknowledges the financial support from the Spanish grant AYA2010-15169 and from the Junta de Andalucía through TIC-114 and the Excellence Project P08-TIC-03531. R.G.D., E.P. and R.G.B. acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, through projects AYA2010-15081. RAM is funded by the Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). J.I.P. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MINECO under grant AYA2010-21887-C04-01 and from Junta de Andalucía Excellence Project PEX2011-FQM7058. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. L.G. acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. AM.-I. acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). AM.-I. and S.B. acknowledge support from BMBF through the Erasmus-F project (grant number 05 A12BA1). JMA acknowledges support from the Eur, We describe and discuss the selection procedure and statistical properties of the galaxy sample used by the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey, a public legacy survey of 600 galaxies using integral field spectroscopy. The CALIFA "mother sample" was selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 photometric catalogue to include all galaxies with an r-band isophotal major axis between 45 '' and 79 : 2 '' and with a redshift 0 : 005 < z < 0 : 03. The mother sample contains 939 objects, 600 of which will be observed in the course of the CALIFA survey. The selection of targets for observations is based solely on visibility and thus keeps the statistical properties of the mother sample. By comparison with a large set of SDSS galaxies, we find that the CALIFA sample is representative of galaxies over a luminosity range of -19 > M-r > -23 : 1 and over a stellar mass range between 10(9.7) and 10(11.4) M-circle dot. In particular, within these ranges, the diameter selection does not lead to any significant bias against - or in favour of - intrinsically large or small galaxies. Only below luminosities of M-r = -19 (or stellar masses < 10(9.7) M-circle dot) is there a prevalence of galaxies with larger isophotal sizes, especially of nearly edge-on late-type galaxies, but such galaxies form < 10% of the full sample. We estimate volume-corrected distribution functions in luminosities and sizes and show that these are statistically fully compatible with estimates from the full SDSS when accounting for large-scale structure. For full characterization of the sample, we also present a number of value-added quantities determined for the galaxies in the CALIFA sample. These include consistent multi-band photometry based on growth curve analyses; stellar masses; distances and quantities derived from these; morphological classifications; and an overview of available multi-wavelength photometric measurements. We also explore different ways of characterizing the e, Marie Curie Career Integration Grant, Junta de Andalucía, Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO), Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI), Unión Europea. FP7, Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative, CONICYT through FONDECYT, Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project, BMBF through the Erasmus-F project, European Research Council, European Union, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, Japanese Monbukagakusho, Max Planck Society, Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC), University of Chicago, Fermilab, Institute for Advanced Study, Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, University of Pittsburgh, Princeton University, United States Naval Observatory, University of Washington, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© 2002. The American Astronomical Society. Valuable discussions with A. Alonso Herrero, P. G. Pérez González, and S. Pascual are gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank the anonymous referee for his/her useful suggestions that improved this Letter. This work was supported in part by the Spanish Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grant AYA2000-1790., The measurement of the star formation rate density of the universe is of prime importance in understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies. The [O II] ƛ3727 emission-line flux, easy to measure up to z ≈ 1.4 within deep redshift surveys in the optical and up to z ≈ 5/4 in the near-infrared, offers a reliable means of characterizing the star formation properties of high-z objects. In order to provide the high-z studies with a local reference, we have measured total [O II] ƛ3727 fluxes for the well-analyzed local sample of star-forming galaxies from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid Survey. These data are used to derive the [O II] ƛ3727 luminosity function for local star-forming galaxies. When compared with similar luminosity densities published for redshift up to z ≈ 1, the overall evolution already observed in the star formation activity of the universe is confirmed., Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica (MICINN), España, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), España, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© ESO 2014. We would like to thank the anonymous referee for useful comments that helped us improve the paper. This work was partially funded by the Spanish MICINN (grant AYA2010-21887-C04-04), and the local Canarian Government (grant ProID20100140). This article is based on observations made with the Isaac Newton Telescope, Nordic Optical Telescope, and Telescope Nazionale Galileo operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group, the Nordic Optical Telescope Scientific Association, and the Fundacion Galileo Galilei of the INAF (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica), respectively, in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. E. D. gratefully acknowledges support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. M. G. acknowledges financial support from the MIUR PRIN/2010-2011 (J91J12000450001). E. M. C. is supported by Padua University (grants 60A02-1283/10,5052/11, 4807/12). J.I.P. and J.V.M. acknowledge financial support from the Spanish MINECO under grant AYA2010-21887-C04-01, and from Junta de Andalucía Excellence Project PEX2011-FQM7058. J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild)., Context. Virialized halos grow by the accretion of smaller ones in the cold dark matter scenario. The rate of accretion depends on the different properties of the host halo. Those halos for which this accretion rate was very fast and efficient resulted in systems dominated by a central galaxy surrounded by smaller galaxies that were at least two magnitudes fainter. These galaxy systems are called fossil systems, and they can be the fossil relics of ancient galaxy structures. Aims. We started an extensive observational program to characterize a sample of 34 fossil group candidates spanning a broad range of physical properties. Methods. Deep r-band images were obtained with the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope and Nordic Optic Telescope. Optical spectroscopic observations were performed at the 3.5-m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo for similar to 1200 galaxies. This new dataset was completed with Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 archival data to obtain robust cluster membership and global properties of each fossil group candidate. For each system, we recomputed the magnitude gaps between the two brightest galaxies (Delta m(12)) and the first and fourth ranked galaxies (Delta m(14)) within 0.5 R-200. We consider fossil systems to be those with Delta m(12) >= 2 mag or Delta m(14) >= 2.5 mag within the errors. Results. We find that 15 candidates turned out to be fossil systems. Their observational properties agree with those of non-fossil systems. Both follow the same correlations, but the fossil systems are always extreme cases. In particular, they host the brightest central galaxies, and the fraction of total galaxy light enclosed in the brightest group galaxy is larger in fossil than in non-fossil systems. Finally, we confirm the existence of genuine fossil clusters. Conclusions. Combining our results with others in the literature, we favor the merging scenario in which fossil systems formed from mergers of L* galaxies. The large magnitude gap is a consequence of the e, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Canarian Government, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, MIUR PRIN, Padua University, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Junta de Andalucia, European Research Council, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© 2009. The American Astronomical Society. NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched in July 1999. The Chandra Data Archive (CDA) is part of the Chandra X-Ray Center (CXC) which is operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. This work is based on observations obtained with XMMNewton, an ESA Science Mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and NASA. GALEX (Galaxy Evolution Explorer) is a NASA Small Explorer, launched in 2003 April. We gratefully acknowledge NASA’s support for construction, operation, and science analysis of the GALEX Mission, developed in cooperation with the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales of France and the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California, Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. This work is based on observations obtained with MegaPrime/ MegaCam, a joint project of CFHT and CEA/DAPNIA, at the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institut National des Science de l’Univers of the Centre National de la Reserche Scientifique (CNRS) of France, and the University of Hawaii. This work is based in part on data products produced at TERAPIX and the Canadian Astronomy data Centre as part of the CFHT Legacy Survey, a collaborative project of NRC and CNRS. This work is based on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory, as part of a collaborative agreement between the California Institute of Technology, its divisions Caltech Optical Observatories and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (operated for NASA), and Cornell University. Many images of this article are based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the data archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). STScI is operated by the Association, We have employed a reliable technique of classification of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) based on the fit of well sampled spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with a complete set of AGN and starburst galaxy templates. We have compiled UV, optical, and IR data for a sample of 116 AGNs originally selected for their X-ray and mid-IR emissions (96 with single detections and 20 with double optical counterparts). This is the most complete compilation of multiwavelength data for such a large sample of AGN in the Extended Groth Strip. Through these SEDs, we are able to obtain highly reliable photometric redshifts and to distinguish between pure and host-dominated AGNs. For the objects with unique detection we find that they can be separated into five main groups, namely: Starburst-dominated AGNs (24% of the sample), Starburst-contaminated AGNs (7%), Type-1 AGNs (21%), Type-2 AGNs (24%), and Normal galaxy hosting AGN (24%). We find these groups concentrated at different redshifts: Type-2 AGNs and Normal galaxy hosting AGNs are concentrated at low redshifts, whereas Starburst-dominated AGNs and Type-1 AGNs show a larger span. Correlations between hard/soft X-ray and UV, optical and IR luminosities are reported for the first time for such a sample of AGNs spanning a wide range of redshifts. For the 20 objects with double detection, the percentage of Starburst-dominated AGNs increases up to 48%., Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), Unión Europea (UE), Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Francia, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MEC), España, Gobierno de España, National Science Foundation (NSF), European Space Agency (ESA), Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Corea del Sur, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California, Institute of Technology, Caltech, National Research Council (NRC), Canada, Centre National de la Reserche Scientifique (CNRS), Francia, University of Hawaii, Cornell University, Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Programa Consolider-Ingenio, Programa Ramón y Cajal, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal © 2013 RAS. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. AH-C and AA-H acknowledge funding by the Universidad de Cantabria Augusto González Linares program. We acknowledge support from the Spanish Programa Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grants AYA2009-07723-E and AYA2009-10368. SHARDS has been funded by the Spanish MICINN/MINECO under the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Program grant CSD2006-00070: First Science with the GTC. This work has made use of the Rainbow Cosmological Surveys Database, which is operated by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). Based on observations made with the GTC, installed at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, in the island of La Palma. We thank all the GTC Staff for their support and enthusiasm with the SHARDS project, and we would like to especially acknowledge the help from Antonio Cabrera and Rene Rutten. We also thank the anonymous referee for their useful comments that helped to improve this paper., We report on results from the analysis of a stellar mass-selected (log (M-*/M-circle dot) >= 9.0) sample of 1644 galaxies at 0.65 < z < 1.1 with ultradeep (m(AB) < 26.5) optical medium-band (R similar to 50) photometry from the Survey for High-z Absorption Red and Dead Sources (SHARDS). The spectral resolution of SHARDS allows us to consistently measure the strength of the 4000 A spectral break [D-n(4000), an excellent age indicator for the stellar populations of quiescent galaxies] for all galaxies at z similar to 0.9 down to log (M-*/M-circle dot) similar to 9. The D-n(4000) index cannot be resolved from broad-band photometry, and measurements from optical spectroscopic surveys are typically limited to galaxies at least 10 times more massive. When combined with the rest-frame U - V colour, (U - V)(r), D-n(4000) provides a powerful diagnostic of the extinction affecting the stellar population that is relatively insensitive to degeneracies with age, metallicity or star formation history. We use this novel approach to estimate de-reddened colours and light-weighted stellar ages for individual sources. We explore the relationships linking stellar mass, (U - V)(r), and D-n(4000) for the sources in the sample, and compare them to those found in local galaxies. The main results are: (a) both D-n(4000) and (U - V)(r) correlate with M-*. The dispersion in D-n(4000) values at a given M-* increases with M-*, while the dispersion for (U - V)(r) decreases due to the higher average extinction prevalent in massive star-forming galaxies. (b) For massive galaxies, we find a smooth transition between the blue cloud and red sequence in the intrinsic U - V colour, in contrast with other recent results. (c) At a fixed stellar age, we find a positive correlation between extinction and stellar mass. (d) The fraction of sources with declining or halted star formation increases steeply with the stellar mass, from similar to 5 per cent at log (M-*/M-circle dot) = 9.0-9.5 to similar to 80 p, Universidad de Cantabria Augusto Gonzalez Linares program, Spanish Programa Nacional de Astronomia y Astrofisica, Spanish MICINN/MINECO under the Consolider-Ingenio Program, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© ESO 2009. We thank the referee M. Bershady for his useful and constructive comments. We acknowledge support from the Spanish Programa Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grant AYA 2006-02358. Partially funded by the Spanish MEC under the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Program grant CSD2006-00070: First Science with the GTC (http://www.iac.es/consolider-ingenio-gtc/). Based on observations collected at the Centro Astronómico Hispano Alemán (CAHA) at Calar Alto, operated jointly by the Max-Planck Institut fur Astronomie and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC). This article is based on observations made with the WHT operated on the island of La Palma by the Instituto Astrofísico de Canarias in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech under NASA contract 1407. GALEX is a NASA Small Explorer launched in 2003 April. We gratefully acknowledge NASA's support for construction, operation, and scientific analysis of the GALEX mission. Based in part on data collected at Subaru Telescope and obtained from the SMOKA, which is operated by the Astronomy Data Center, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. Based on observations obtained with MegaPrime/MegaCam, a joint project of CFHT and CEA/DAPNIA, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institut National des Science de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France, and the University of Hawaii., Context. The galaxy number counts has been traditionally used to test models of galaxy evolution. However, the origin of significant differences in the shape of number counts at different wavelengths is still unclear. By relating the most remarkable features in the number counts with the underlying galaxy population it is possible to introduce further constraints on galaxy evolution. Aims. We aim to investigate the causes of the different shape of the K-band number counts when compared to other bands, analyzing in detail the presence of a change in the slope around K similar to 17.5. Methods. We present a near-infrared imaging survey, conducted at the 3.5 m telescope of the Calar Alto Spanish-German Astronomical Center (CAHA), covering two separated fields centered on the HFDN and the Groth field, with a total combined area of similar to 0.27 deg(2) to a depth of K similar to 19 (3 sigma, Vega). By combining our data with public deep K-band images in the CDFS (GOODS/ISAAC) and high quality imaging in multiple bands, we extract K-selected catalogs characterized with highly reliable photometric redshift estimates. We derive redshift binned number counts, comparing the results in our three fields to sample the effects of cosmic variance. We derive luminosity functions from the observed K-band in the redshift range [0.25-1.25], that are combined with data from the references in multiple bands and redshifts, to build up the K-band number count distribution. Results. The overall shape of the number counts can be grouped into three regimes: the classic Euclidean slope regime (d log N/dm similar to 0.6) at bright magnitudes; a transition regime at intermediate magnitudes, dominated by M* galaxies at the redshift that maximizes the product phi*dVc/d Omega; and an alpha dominated regime at faint magnitudes, where the slope asymptotically approaches -0.4(alpha + 1) controlled by post-M* galaxies. The slope of the K-band number counts presents an averaged decrement of similar t, Spanish Programa Nacional de Astronomia y Astrofísica, Spanish MEC, NASA, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, National Science Foundation, Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, Institut National des Science de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France, University of Hawaii, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 RAS. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. It is a pleasure to thank those people who welcomed our project into the 3.5-m telescope in CAHA, where we always felt at home, especially those cozy snowy nights full of pastries and hot chocolates. We would especially like to thank Ana Guijarro, Jesús Aceituno and Santos Pedraz. We also thank Carlos Hoyos for interesting and highlighting discussions. Finally, we thank our referee, Matthew Bershady, for his helpful comments and suggestions. JPG acknowledges support from a University of Florida Alumni Fellowship and RG from NASA Grant LTSA NA65-11635. This work is partially funded by the Spanish MICINN under the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme grant CSD2006-00070: First Science with the GTC (http://www.iac.es/consolider-ingenio-gtc). This work is partially funded by the Spanish Programa de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grants AYA2006-02358 and AYA2006-15698-C02-02., The kinematic properties of the ionized gas of local luminous compact blue galaxy NGC 7673 are presented using three-dimensional data taken with the PPAK integral field unit at the 3.5-m telescope in the Centro Astronomico Hispano Aleman. Our data reveal an asymmetric rotating velocity field with a peak-to-peak difference of 60 km s(-1). The kinematic centre is found to be at the position of a central velocity width maximum (sigma = 54 +/- 1 kms(-1)), which is consistent with the position of the luminosity-weighted centroid of the entire galaxy. The position angle of the minor rotation axis is 168 degrees as measured from the orientation of the velocity field contours. At least two decoupled kinematic components are found. The first one is compact and coincides with the position of the second most active star formation region (clump B). The second one is extended and does not have a clear optical counterpart. No evidence of active galactic nuclei activity or supernovae galactic winds powering any of these two components has been found. Our data, however, show evidence in support of a previously proposed minor merger scenario in which a dwarf galaxy, tentatively identified with clump B, is falling into NGC 7673 and triggers the starburst. Finally, it is shown that the dynamical mass of this galaxy may be severely underestimated when using the derived rotation curve or the integrated velocity width, under the assumption of virialization., University of Florida Alumni Fellowship, NASA, Spanish MICINN, Spanish Programa de Astronomia y Astrofisica, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub