Search

Gas kinematics affect the radiative transfer and escape of hydrogen Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly$\alpha$) emission from galaxies. We investigate this interplay empirically by relating the ionised gas kinematics of 42 galaxies in the extended Ly$\alpha$ Reference Sample with their Ly$\alpha$ escape fractions, $f_\rm{esc}$, Ly$\alpha$ equivalent widths, $\rm{EW}_\rm{Ly\alpha}$, and Ly$\alpha$ luminosities, $L_\rm{Ly\alpha}$. To this aim we use PMAS integral-field spectroscopic observations of the Balmer-$\alpha$ line. We calculate shearing velocities, $v_\rm{shear}$, and intrinsic velocity dispersions, $\sigma_0^\rm{obs}$ (empirically corrected for beam-smearing effects), as global kinematical measures for each galaxy. The sample is characterised by highly turbulent motions and more than half of the sample shows dispersion dominated kinematics. We uncover clear trends between Ly$\alpha$ observables and global kinematical statistics. We discuss statistically the importance of $v_\rm{shear}$, $\sigma_0^\rm{obs}$, and $v_\rm{shear}/\sigma_0^\rm{obs}$ for regulating the Ly$\alpha$ observables in comparison to other galaxy parameters. It emerges that $\sigma_0^\rm{obs}$ is the dominating parameter for $\rm{EW}_\rm{Ly\alpha}$ and that is as important as nebular extinction, gas covering fraction, and ionising photon production efficiency in regulating $f_\rm{esc}$. A simple scenario where the starburst age is simultaneously regulating turbulence, $\rm{EW}_\rm{Ly\alpha}$, and $f_\rm{esc}$ does not find support by our observations. However, we show that the small scale distribution of dust appears to be influenced by turbulence in some galaxies. In support of our observational result we discuss how turbulence is theoretically expected to play a significant role in modulating $f_\rm{esc}$. (abridged), Comment: Accepted version for publication in A&A

The Fornax galaxy cluster is the richest nearby (D ~ 20 Mpc) galaxy association in the southern sky. As such, it provides a wealth of oportunities to elucidate on the processes where environment holds a key role in transforming galaxies. Although it has been the focus of many studies, Fornax has never been explored with contiguous homogeneous wide-field imaging in 12 photometric narrow- and broad-bands like those provided by the Southern Photometric Local Universe Survey (S-PLUS). In this paper we present the S-PLUS Fornax Project (S+FP) that aims to comprehensively analyse the galaxy content of the Fornax cluster using S-PLUS. Our data set consists of 106 S-PLUS wide-field frames (FoV ~ 1.4 x 1.4 deg$^2$) observed in five SDSS-like ugriz broad-bands and seven narrow-bands covering specific spectroscopic features like [OII], CaII H+K, H$\delta$, G-band, Mg b triplet, H$\alpha$, and the CaII triplet. Based on S-PLUS specific automated photometry, aimed at correctly detecting Fornax galaxies and globular clusters in S-PLUS images, our dataset provides the community with catalogues containing homogeneous 12-band photometry for ~ 3 x 10$^6$ resolved and unresolved objects within a region extending over ~ 208 deg$^2$ (~ 5 Rvir in RA) around Fornax' central galaxy, NGC 1399. We further explore the EAGLE and IllustrisTNG cosmological simulations to identify 45 Fornax-like clusters and generate mock images on all 12 S-PLUS bands of these structures down to galaxies with M$\star \geq 10^8$ M$\odot$. The S+FP dataset we put forward in this first paper of a series will enable a variety of studies some of which are briefly presented., Comment: 25 pages, 30 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Tidal features in the outskirts of galaxies yield unique information about their past interactions and are a key prediction of the hierarchical structure formation paradigm. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is poised to deliver deep observations for potentially of millions of objects with visible tidal features, but the inference of galaxy interaction histories from such features is not straightforward. Utilising automated techniques and human visual classification in conjunction with realistic mock images produced using the NEWHORIZON cosmological simulation, we investigate the nature, frequency and visibility of tidal features and debris across a range of environments and stellar masses. In our simulated sample, around 80 per cent of the flux in the tidal features around Milky Way or greater mass galaxies is detected at the 10-year depth of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (30-31 mag / sq. arcsec), falling to 60 per cent assuming a shallower final depth of 29.5 mag / sq. arcsec. The fraction of total flux found in tidal features increases towards higher masses, rising to 10 per cent for the most massive objects in our sample (M*~10^{11.5} Msun). When observed at sufficient depth, such objects frequently exhibit many distinct tidal features with complex shapes. The interpretation and characterisation of such features varies significantly with image depth and object orientation, introducing significant biases in their classification. Assuming the data reduction pipeline is properly optimised, we expect the Rubin Observatory to be capable of recovering much of the flux found in the outskirts of Milky Way mass galaxies, even at intermediate redshifts (z<0.2)., Comment: 29 pages, 25 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS following minor corrections

The photometric and morphological analysis of galaxies in clusters provides invaluable information regarding the evolutionary stage of the cluster itself. In addition, it helps to understand how the environment affects the properties of the galaxies and, as a consequence, their evolutionary path. In this contribution we present the first steps on the photometric and morphological analysis of galaxies in the Fornax cluster using S-PLUS data. We expect that the S-PLUS novel filter set and wide field coverage allow us to obtain new information about Fornax and its galaxy population., Comment: 3 pages, 5 figures. Accepted to be published in Bolet\'in de la Asociaci\'on Argentina de Astronom\'ia

This work is a Brazilian-Indian collaboration. It aims at investigating the structuralproperties of Lenticular galaxies in the Stripe 82 using a combination of S-PLUS (Southern Photometric Local Universe Survey) and SDSS data. S-PLUS is a noveloptical multi-wavelength survey which will cover nearly 8000 square degrees of the Southern hemisphere in the next years and the first data release covers the Stripe 82 area. The morphological classification and study of the galaxies' stellar population will be performed combining the Bayesian Spectral type (from BPZ) and Morfometryka (MFMTK) parameters. BPZ and MFMTK are two complementary techniques, since the first one determines the most likely stellar population of a galaxy, in order to obtain its photometric redshift (phot-z), and the second one recovers non-parametric morphological quantities, such as asymmetries and concentration. The combination ofthe two methods allows us to explore the correlation between galaxies shapes (smooth, with spiral arms, etc.) and their stellar contents (old or young population). The preliminary results, presented in this work, show how this new data set opens a new window on our understanding of the nearby universe.

We present a star/galaxy classification for the Southern Photometric Local Universe Survey (S-PLUS), based on a Machine Learning approach: the Random Forest algorithm. We train the algorithm using the S-PLUS optical photometry up to $r$=21, matched to SDSS/DR13, and morphological parameters. The metric of importance is defined as the relative decrease of the initial accuracy when all correlations related to a certain feature is vanished. In general, the broad photometric bands presented higher importance when compared to narrow ones. The influence of the morphological parameters has been evaluated training the RF with and without the inclusion of morphological parameters, presenting accuracy values of 95.0\% and 88.1\%, respectively. Particularly, the morphological parameter {\rm FWHM/PSF} performed the highest importance over all features to distinguish between stars and galaxies, indicating that it is crucial to classify objects into stars and galaxies. We investigate the misclassification of stars and galaxies in the broad-band colour-colour diagram $(g-r)$ versus $(r-i)$. The morphology can notably improve the classification of objects at regions in the diagram where the misclassification was relatively high. Consequently, it provides cleaner samples for statistical studies. The expected contamination rate of red galaxies as a function of the redshift is estimated, providing corrections for red galaxy samples. The classification of QSOs as extragalactic objects is slightly better using photometric-only case. An extragalactic point-source catalogue is provided using the classification without any morphology feature (only the SED information) with additional constraints on photometric redshifts and {\rm FWHM/PSF} values., Comment: 11 pages and 6 figures, submitted to MNRAS

The practical implementation of many quantum technologies relies on the development of robust and bright single photon sources that operate at room temperature. The negatively charged silicon-vacancy (SiV-) color center in diamond is a possible candidate for such a single photon source. However, due to the high refraction index mismatch to air, color centers in diamond typically exhibit low photon out-coupling. An additional shortcoming is due to the random localization of native defects in the diamond sample. Here we demonstrate deterministic implantation of Si ions with high conversion efficiency to single SiV- centers, targeted to fabricated nanowires. The co-localization of single SiV- centers with the nanostructures yields a ten times higher light coupling efficiency than for single SiV- centers in bulk diamond. This enhanced photon out-coupling, together with the intrinsic scalability of the SiV- creation method, enables a new class of devices for integrated photonics and quantum science., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures

We study transport across p-n junctions of gapped two-dimensional semi-Dirac materials: nodal semimetals whose energy bands disperse quadratically and linearly along distinct crystal axes. The resulting electronic properties --- relevant to materials such as TiO$_2$/VO$_2$ multilayers and $\alpha$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$I$_3$ salts --- continuously interpolate between those of mono- and bi-layer graphene as a function of propagation angle. We demonstrate that tunneling across the junction depends on the orientation of the tunnel barrier relative to the crystalline axes, leading to strongly non-monotonic current-voltage characteristics, including negative differential conductance in some regimes. In multi-valley systems these features provide a natural route to engineering valley-selective transport., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, appendices

Recent advances in engineering and control of nanoscale quantum sensors have opened new paradigms in precision metrology. Unfortunately, hardware restrictions often limit the sensor performance. In nanoscale magnetic resonance probes, for instance, finite sampling times greatly limit the achievable sensitivity and spectral resolution. We develop a technique for coherent quantum interpolation that can overcome these problems. Using a quantum sensor associated with the Nitrogen Vacancy center in diamond, we experimentally demonstrate that quantum interpolation can achieve spectroscopy of classical magnetic fields and individual quantum spins with orders of magnitude finer frequency resolution than conventionally possible. Not only is quantum interpolation an enabling technique to extract structural and chemical information from single biomolecules, but it can be directly applied to other quantum systems for super-resolution quantum spectroscopy., Comment: 4 + 17 pages

We chart out the possible phases of laser driven Rydberg atoms in the presence of a hypercubic optical lattice. We define a pseudospin degree of freedom whose up(down) components correspond to the excited(ground) states of the Rydberg atoms and use them to demonstrate the realization of a canted Ising antiferromagnetic (CIAF) Mott phase of the atoms in these systems. We also show that on lowering the lattice depth, the quantum melting of the CIAF and density-wave (DW) Mott states (which are also realized in these systems) leads to supersolid (SS) phases of the atoms. We provide analytical expressions for the phase boundaries and collective excitations of these phases in the hardcore limit within mean-field theory and discuss possible experiments to test our theory., Comment: v1; 4pg 4 figs + supplementary materials

The stellar kinematics of the spheroids and discs of S0 galaxies contain clues to their formation histories. Unfortunately, it is difficult to disentangle the two components and to recover their stellar kinematics in the faint outer parts of the galaxies using conventional absorption line spectroscopy. This paper therefore presents the stellar kinematics of six S0 galaxies derived from observations of planetary nebulae (PNe), obtained using the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph. To separate the kinematics of the two components, we use a maximum-likelihood method that combines the discrete kinematic data with a photometric component decomposition. The results of this analysis reveal that: the discs of S0 galaxies are rotationally supported; however, the amount of random motion in these discs is systematically higher than in comparable spiral galaxies; and the S0s lie around one magnitude below the Tully--Fisher relation for spiral galaxies, while their spheroids lie nearly one magnitude above the Faber--Jackson relation for ellipticals. All of these findings are consistent with a scenario in which spirals are converted into S0s through a process of mild harassment or "pestering," with their discs somewhat heated and their spheroid somewhat enhanced by the conversion process. In such a scenario, one might expect the properties of S0s to depend on environment. We do not see such an effect in this fairly small sample, although any differences would be diluted by the fact that the current location does not necessarily reflect the environment in which the transformation occurred. Similar observations of larger samples probing a broader range of environments, coupled with more detailed modelling of the transformation process to match the wide range of parameters that we have shown can now be measured, should take us from these first steps to the definitive answer as to how S0 galaxies form., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

In this review we focus on the effect of the Dirac nature of graphene quasiparticles on two separate aspects. The first of these involves transport across superconducting graphene junctions with barriers of thickness $d_0$ and arbitrary gate voltages $V_0$ applied across the barrier region. The second aspect involves study of the presence of localized magnetic impurities in graphene and we show that Kondo effect in graphene is unconventional and can be tuned by gate voltage. We also discuss scanning tunneling conductance spectra phenomenon for both doped and undoped graphene. We show that the position of the impurity on or in graphene plays a subtle role and affects the underlying physics of STM spectra in doped graphene., Comment: Invited review article for WSPC's Annual Review on Graphene

We study the Mott phases and the superfluid-insulator transition of two-component ultracold bosons on a square optical lattice in the presence of a non-Abelian synthetic gauge field, which renders a SU(2) hopping matrix for the bosons. Using a resummed hopping expansion, we calculate the excitation spectra in the Mott insulating phases and demonstrate that the superfluid-insulator phase boundary displays a non-monotonic dependence on the gauge field strength. We also compute the momentum distribution of the bosons in the presence of the non-Abelian field and show that they develop peaks at non-zero momenta as the superfluid-insulator transition point is approached from the Mott side. Finally, we study the superfluid phases near the transition and discuss the induced spatial pattern of the superfluid density due to the presence of the non-Abelian gauge potential., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures

We provide a theory for the tunneling conductance $G(V)$ of Dirac Fermions on the surface of a topological insulator as measured by a spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscope tip for low bias voltages $V$. We show that $G(V)$ exhibits an unconventional dependence on the direction of magnetization of the tip and can be used to measure the magnitude of the local out-of-plane spin orientation of the Dirac Fermions on the surface. We also demonstrate that if the in-plane rotational symmetry on the surface of the topological insulator is broken by an external field, then $G(V)$ acquires a dependence on the azimuthal angle of the magnetization of the tip. We explain the role of the Dirac Fermions in this unconventional behavior and suggest experiments to test our theory., Comment: 7 pages, 5 Figs

To investigate the origins of S0 galaxies, we present a new method of analyzing their stellar kinematics from discrete tracers such as planetary nebulae. This method involves binning the data in the radial direction so as to extract the most general possible non-parametric kinematic profiles, and using a maximum likelihood fit within each bin in order to make full use of the information in the discrete kinematic tracers. Both disk and spheroid kinematic components are fitted, with a two-dimensional decomposition of imaging data used to attribute to each tracer a probability of membership in the separate components. Likelihood clipping also allows us to identify objects whose properties are not consistent with the adopted model, rendering the technique robust against contaminants and able to identify additional kinematic features. The method is first tested on an N-body simulated galaxy to assess possible sources of systematic error associated with the structural and kinematic decomposition, which are found to be small. It is then applied to the S0 system NGC~1023, for which a planetary nebula catalogue has already been released and analyzed by (Noordermeer et al., 2008). The correct inclusion of the spheroidal component allows us to show that, contrary to previous claims, the stellar kinematics of this galaxy are indistinguishable from those of a normal spiral galaxy, indicating that it may have evolved directly from such a system via gas stripping or secular evolution. The method also successfully identifies a population of outliers whose kinematics are different from those of the main galaxy; these objects can be identified with a stellar stream associated with the companion galaxy NGC~1023A., Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We study Mott phases and superfluid-insulator (SI) transitions of ultracold bosonic atoms in a two-dimensional square optical lattice at commensurate filling and in the presence of a synthetic periodic vector potential characterized by a strength $p$ and a period $l=qa$, where $q$ is an integer and $a$ is the lattice spacing. We show that the Schr\"odinger equation for the non-interacting bosons in the presence of such a periodic vector potential can be reduced to an one-dimensional Harper-like equation which yields $q$ energy bands. The lowest of these bands have either single or double minima whose position within the magnetic Brillouin zone can be tuned by varying $p$ for a given $q$. Using these energies and a strong-coupling expansion technique, we compute the phase diagram of these bosons in the presence of a deep optical lattice. We chart out the $p$ and $q$ dependence of the momentum distribution of the bosons in the Mott phases near the SI transitions and demonstrate that the bosons exhibit several re-entrant field-induced SI transitions for any fixed period $q$. We also predict that the superfluid density of the resultant superfluid state near such a SI transition has a periodicity $q$ ($q/2$) in real space for odd (even) $q$ and suggest experiments to test our theory., Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, v1

We compute the tunneling conductance of graphene as measured by a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) with a normal/superconducting tip. We demonstrate that for undoped graphene with zero Fermi energy, the first derivative of the tunneling conductance with respect to the applied voltage is proportional to the density of states of the STM tip. We also show that the shape of the STM spectra for graphene doped with impurities depends qualitatively on the position of the impurity atom in the graphene matrix and relate this unconventional phenomenon to the pseudopsin symmetry of the Dirac quasiparticles in graphene. We suggest experiments to test our theory., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

The outskirts of galaxies are a very good laboratory for testing the nature of the gravitational field at low accelerations. By assuming that the neutral hydrogen gas is in hydrostatic equilibrium in the gravitational potential of the host galaxy, the observed flaring of the gas layer can be used to test modified gravities. For the first time we construct a simple framework to derive the scaleheight of the neutral hydrogen gas disc in the MOND scenario and apply this to the Milky Way. It is shown that using a constant gas velocity dispersion of ~9 km/s, MOND is able to give a very good fit to the observed HI flaring beyond a galactocentric distance of 17 kpc up to the last measured point (~40 kpc). Between 10 and 16 kpc, however, the observed scaleheight is about 40% more than what MOND predicts for the standard interpolating function and 70% for the form suggested by Famaey & Binney. Given the uncertainties in the non-thermal pressure support by cosmic rays and magnetic fields, MOND seems to be a plausible alternative to dark matter in explaining the Milky Way flaring. Studying the flaring of extended HI discs in external edge-on galaxies may be a promising approach to assess the viability of MOND., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures

It is shown that pure exponential discs in spiral galaxies are capable of supporting slowly varying discrete global lopsided modes, which can explain the observed features of lopsidedness in the stellar discs. Using linearized fluid dynamical equations with the softened self-gravity and pressure of the perturbation as the collective effect, we derive self-consistently a quadratic eigenvalue equation for the lopsided perturbation in the galactic disc. On solving this, we find that the ground-state mode shows the observed characteristics of the lopsidedness in a galactic disc, namely the fractional Fourier amplitude A$_1$ increases smoothly with the radius. These lopsided patterns precess in the disc with a very slow pattern speed with no preferred sense of precession. We show that the lopsided modes in the stellar disc are long-lived because of a substantial reduction ($\sim$ a factor of 10 compared to the local free precession rate) in the differential precession. The numerical solution of the equations shows that the ground-state lopsided modes are either very slowly precessing stationary normal mode oscillations of the disc or growing modes with a slow growth rate depending on the relative importance of the collective effect of the self-gravity. N-body simulations are performed to test the spontaneous growth of lopsidedness in a pure stellar disc. Both approaches are then compared and interpreted in terms of long-lived global $m=1$ instabilities, with almost zero pattern speed., Comment: 15 pages, 23 figures, accepted in MNRAS

Recent observations have shown that most of the warps in the disk galaxies are asymmetric. However there exists no generic mechanism to generate these asymmetries in warps. We have shown that a rich variety of possible asymmetries in the z-distribution of the spiral galaxies can naturally arise due to a dynamical wave interference between the first two bending modes i.e. bowl-shaped mode(m=0) and S-shaped warping mode(m=1) in the galactic disk embedded in a dark matter halo. We show that the asymmetric warps are more pronounced when the dark matter content within the optical disk is lower as in early-type galaxies., Comment: one page, one figure, submitted to the proceedings of IAU Symposium 235: Galaxy Evolution across the Hubble Time

The observed flaring of HI disk in the outer region of galaxies has been used in the past to determine the shape of the dark matter halo. Previous studies based on this concept suggest a slightly oblate halo (axis ratio ~ 0.8) for our Galaxy. We reinvestigate this problem by calculating the HI scaleheight in the outer Galaxy to a larger radial distance, and by studying its dependence on the shape and the density profile of the halo. We find that a simple isothermal infinite halo of any shape- oblate or prolate, is not able to account for the observed flaring. Instead we show that a spherical halo with density falling faster than isothermal halo in the outer region provides a better fit to the observed HI flaring as well as the observed rotation curve of our Galaxy. These halos have about 95% of their mass within a few hundreds of kpc. For R_solar = 8.5 kpc and \Theta_solar = 220 km/s, the central density and core radius can be constrained to the range \rho_0 = 0.035 - 0.06 M_sun/pc^3 and R_c = 8 - 10 kpc. Our claim for such 'finite-sized' spherical halos is supported by recent literature on numerical simulation studies of halo formation as well as analyses of SDSS data., Comment: Accepted for publication in A & A