Dynamics and Mass

The environment in which a galaxy resides plays a key role in how both the stellar component and the dark matter halo evolve. Satellites of massive halos provide important clues as to how accreted halos develop in a dense environment, and are subjected to unique effects such as tidal disruption and gas stripping. Isolated galaxies are shielded from effects induced by other galaxies, and so represent a `clean' test of how galaxies grow in the context of the $____Lambda$CDM paradigm. In this work, I examine the structure of a number of dwarf galaxies in a range of environments, from the most isolated members of the Local Group to satellites of the Milky Way, and consider what this suggests about the evolution of the galaxy halo. I first present new spectroscopy of the isolated dwarf spheroidal galaxy Tucana. Tucana displays a high velocity dispersion consistent with residing in a dense subhalo. I perform Jeans modelling of the density profile of Tucana, using the line--of--sight velocities of its member stars. I find that it favours a high central density consistent with pristine $____Lambda$CDM subhalos, and a massive dark matter halo consistent with expectations from abundance matching. Tucana appears to be significantly more centrally dense than other isolated Local Group dwarfs, and it is plausible that the dearth of recent star formation has allowed it to retain its central mass. I then present new chemo--kinematics of Hercules, a Milky Way satellite which is purported to be tidally disrupting on the basis of its elongated shape and apparent debris surrounding the central galaxy. I find little evidence for tidal disruption in the kinematics of Hercules, with no significant velocity gradient across the galaxy. The proper motion of Hercules is shown to be misaligned with the position angle of the elongation, contrary to expectations from simulations, although this may be resolved by future astrometry. With current data, the orbital path of Hercules is too uncertain to determine the extent to which Hercules has been affected by the tidal influence of the Milky Way. In the final chapter I introduce a new survey of isolated, low mass dwarf galaxies in the Local Group. Under $____Lambda$CDM, galaxies at all mass scales are believed to grow through hierarchical merging of smaller bodies. Traces of this accretion history should be observable as substructures in the virial halo of galaxies. Using photometry of isolated dwarfs across a range of low halo masses, this survey aims to quantify whether such structured halos are observed at all scales, or whether there is a mass scale at which galaxies no longer accrete smaller systems.

The observed velocity dispersion of the classical dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies of the Milky Way (MW) requires the Newtonian stellar mass-to-light ($M_*/L$) ratios in the range of about 10 to more than 100 solar units that are well outside the acceptable limit predicted by stellar population synthesis models. Using Jeans analysis, we calculate the line-of-sight velocity dispersion ($\sigma_{\emph{los}}$) of stars in eight MW dSphs in the context of the modified gravity (MOG) theory of Moffat, assuming a constant $M_*/L$ ratio without invoking the exotic cold dark matter. First, we use the weak field approximation of MOG and assume the two parameters $ \alpha $ and $ \mu $ of the theory to be constant as has already been inferred from fitting to the observed rotational data of The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey catalogue of galaxies. We find that the derived $M_*/L$ ratios for almost all dSphs are too large to be explained by the stellar population values. In order to fit the line-of-sight velocity dispersions of the dSph with reasonable $M_*/L$ values, we must vary $\alpha$ and $\mu$ on a case by case basis. A common pair of values cannot be found for all dSphs. Comparing with the values found from rotation curve fitting, it appears that $\mu$ correlates strongly with galaxy luminosity, shedding doubt on it as a universal constant.

The initial cluster mass function (ICMF) is a fundamental property of star formation in galaxies. To gauge its universality, we measure and compare the ICMFs in irregular and spiral galaxies. Our sample of irregular galaxies is based on 13 nearby galaxies selected from a volume-limited sample from the fifth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The extinctions, ages, and masses were determined by comparing their u'g'i'z' magnitudes to those generated from starburst models. Completeness corrections were performed using Monte Carlo simulations in which artificial clusters were inserted into each galaxy. We analyzed three nearby spiral galaxies with SDSS data in exactly the same way to derive their ICMF based on a similar number of young, massive clusters as the irregular galaxy ICMF. We find that the ICMFs of irregular and spiral galaxies for masses >3x10^4 M_sun are statistically indistinguishable. For clusters more massive than 3x10^4 M_sun, the ICMF of the irregular galaxies is reasonably well fit by a power law dN(M)/dM ~ M^-a_M with a_M = 1.88 +/- 0.09. Similar results were obtained for the ICMF of the spiral galaxy sample but with a_M = 1.75 +/- 0.06. We discuss the implications of our result for theories of star cluster formation: the shape of the ICMF appears to be independent of metallicity and galactic shear rate.

The Andromeda (M31) and Triangulum (M33) galaxies are the closest Local Group galaxies to the Milky Way, being only 785 and 870 kpc away. These two galaxies provide an independent view of high-energy processes that are often obscured in our own Galaxy, including possible signals of dark matter (DM) particle interactions. The Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) preliminary eight year list of sources includes both M31, which is detected as extended with a size of about 0.4$^\circ$, and M33, which is detected as a point-like source. The spatial morphology of M31 $\gamma$-ray emission could trace a population of unresolved sources and energetic particles originating in sources not related to massive star formation. Alternatively, the $\gamma$-ray emission could also be an indication of annihilation or decay of DM particles. We investigate these two possibilities using almost 10 years of data from the Fermi LAT. An interpretation that involves only a DM $\gamma$-ray emission is in tension with the current limits from other searches, such as those targeting Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies. When we include a template of astrophysical emission, tuned on $\gamma$-ray data or from observations of these galaxies in other wavelengths, we do not find any significant evidence for a DM contribution and we set limits for the annihilation cross section that probe the thermal cross section for DM masses up to a few tens of GeV in the $b\bar{b}$ and $\tau^+\tau^-$ channels. For models where the DM substructures have masses above $10^{-6}$ solar masses our limits probe the DM interpretation of the Fermi LAT Galactic center excess. We provide also the lower limit for the DM decay time assuming the same spatial models of the DM distribution in M31 and M33.

The neutral hydrogen distribution in four low-luminosity elliptical galaxies was imaged using the VLA, and B and V CCD images were obtained to determine their luminosity profiles. The brighter two of these galaxies, NGC 5666 and NGC 3265, show gapped disks, a feature typical of the H I distribution in the few bright early-type galaxies mapped to date. The gas in NGC 5666 extends to nearly 20 times the half-light radius, making it an ideal probe for the presence of dark matter. The fainter two galaxies, UGC 7354 and A1230 + 09, have centrally concentrated gas distributions, but the H I again extends to twice the Holmberg radius. The velocity distributions in the galaxies show more or less regular rotation, NGC 5666 being remarkably regular for an elliptical galaxy. In all cases, the large radial extent of the gas is compelling evidence against its origin being stellar mass loss from the luminous stellar figure. 24 references.

Galaxies in our universe must acquire fresh gas to continue forming new stars. A likely source of this material may be the gas that resides between galaxies. We do not, however, have a clear understanding of the specifics, such as its distribution. The first claimed detection of this "cosmic web" of material directly in emission was published a decade ago using the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands while surveying neutral hydrogen in the Local Group of galaxies. Later evidence, in the form of stellar surveys and test particle simulations, showed that a tidal origin of the gas was another possibility.;More recent survey work of the Local Group, specifically between the galaxies M31 and M33, motivated us to map a section of the Westerbork emission using the Robert C . Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). Our survey covers a 12 square degree area between M31 and M33, in which we reach 21 cm column density sensitivities of 1017.2 cm-2 after 400 hours of observations. These observations provide more than a factor of five better spatial resolution, and better than a factor of three in velocity resolution. Not only do we confirm the emission seen in the Westerbork data, we find that the hydrogen gas is composed of clouds a few kiloparsecs across, with properties suggesting they are a unique population to the Local Group. We conclude that the clouds are likely transient condensations from an intergalactic filament of gas, although a tidal feature cannot currently be ruled out. We also conducted GBT pointings to the northwest of M31 to search for the extended emission seen in the Westerbork data as well. What detections we find appear to be more related to the high velocity cloud population of M31. We are continuing to map other regions around M31 to search for more diffuse emission.;We also present southern sky maps of the high velocity and intermediate velocity clouds around our own Milky Way, using 21 cm survey data from the Parkes telescope in Australia. The existence of these objects have been known for over 50 years, yet there is no general consensus as to their origins. The maps we have produced are the most detailed to date, with high spatial and velocity resolution and good sensitivity. By using a model of Milky Way rotation, we more effectively filter out foreground emission from our own Galaxy to produce these maps. We also

The history of the Milky Way is written in the properties of its stellar populations. Here we analyze stars observed as part of surveys of local dwarf spheroidal galaxies, but which from their kinematics are highly likely to be nonmembers. The selection function-designed to target metal-poor giants in the dwarf galaxies, at distances of ∼100 kpc - includes F-M dwarfs in the Milky Way, at distances of up to several kiloparsecs. The stars whose motions are analyzed here lie in the cardinal directions of Galactic longitude l ∼ 270° and l ∼ 90°, where the radial velocity is sensitive to the orbital rotational velocity. We demonstrate that the faint F and G stars contain a significant population with V Φ ∼ 100 km s -1, similar to that found by a targeted, but limited in areal coverage, survey of thick disk and halo stars by Gilmore et al. This value of mean orbital rotation does not match either the canonical thick disk or the stellar halo. We argue that this population, detected at both l ∼ 270° and l ∼ 90°, has the expected properties of "satellite debris" in the thick disk-halo interface, which we interpret as remnants of the merger that heated a preexisting thin disk to form the thick disk.

We investigate dwarf irregular(dIrr) galaxies as a new category of targets for indirect Dark Matter(DM) searches with gamma-rays. In the framework of point-like analysis, dwarf spheroidal(dSph) galaxies are usually considered as one of the best category of targets for indirect DM searches. Nonetheless, as a result of their uncertain kinematics, the DM content and astrophysical J-factors of dSphs are usually affected by significant errors. In this paper, we study a sample of 36 dIrrs as prospective targets of interest. In the framework of the universal rotation curve, the kinematics of dIrr galaxies provides a good estimation of their DM halo density distribution and, consequently, of their astrophysical J-factors. We calculate the J-factors for these 36 dIrr galaxies. We find a range of values comparable with the J-factors of dSph galaxies. However, differently from dSphs an extra astrophysical gamma-ray background component is expected in dIrrs, that is due to their star-formation activity. In this paper, we show via a theoretical approach that for galaxies in our sample the extra astrophysical background component is negligible. Therefore, we conclude that dIrr galaxies can be potentially considered as additional point-like targets for DM searches with gamma-rays. As a first application of this study, we show the sensitivity limits of the Fermi-LAT telescope to these objects and we calculate constraints on the DM particle mass and annihilation cross-section. We conclude that the results of the individual study of several dIrr galaxies are not yet competitive with respect to the analysis of one of the most promising dSph galaxies, ie SEGUE1. However, taking into account SEGUE1's symmetry-related uncertainties in the J-factor calculation might alter this conclusion. Additionally, we calculate constraints for the combined analysis of the 7 most promising dIrr galaxies of our sample.

Interest in dwarf spheroidal galaxies is motivated by a number of reasons; an important one on the occasion of this colloquium is the abundance of variable stars. The theory of stellar evolution and stellar pulsations is now able to predict from theoretical considerations characteristic properties of variable stars in the colour-magnitude diagram (Iben, 1971). By observing the variable stars in the field, and in as wide a selection of objects as possible, more insight can be obtained into the history of the oldest members of our Galaxy (the globular clusters) and of the dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the Local Group. It is worthwhile to explore the spheroidal galaxies as observational tests for the theoretical predictions of conditions in space away from our Galaxy. The numbers of variable stars in the dwarf spheroidal galaxies are such that we may expect well-defined relations to emerge once reliable magnitude sequences have been set up, the variable stars found, and their periods determined. Six dwarf spheroidal galaxies are presently known in the Local Group within a distance of 250 kpc. In Table I, which lists members of the Local Group, they are at the low-luminosity end of the sequence of elliptical galaxies (van den Bergh, 1968).

We use a N{body/hydrodynamic simulation to forecast the future encounter between the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies, given current observational constraints on their relative distance, relative velocity, and masses. Allowing for a comparable amount of difiuse mass to flll the volume of the Local Group, we flnd that the two galaxies are likely to collide in a few billion years - within the Sun’s lifetime. During the flrst close encounter of the two galaxies, there is a 12% chance that the Sun will be pulled from its present position and reside in the extended tidal material. After the second close encounter, there is a 30% chance that the Sun will reside in the extended tidal material, and a 2.7% chance that our Sun will be more tightly bound to Andromeda than to the Milky Way. Eventually, after the merger has completed, the Sun is likely to be scattered to the outer halo and reside at much larger radii (> 30 kpc). The density proflles of the stars, gas and dark matter in the merger product resemble those of elliptical galaxies. Our Local Group model therefore provides a prototype progenitor of late{forming elliptical galaxies.

We have determined the distance and star formation history of the Local Group dwarf galaxy LGS 3 from deep Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 observations. LGS 3 is intriguing because ground-based observations showed that, while its stellar population is dominated by old, metal-poor stars, there is a handful of young, blue stars. Also, the presence of H I gas makes this a possible transition object between dwarf spheroidal and dwarf irregular galaxies. The HST data are deep enough to detect the horizontal branch and young main sequence for the first time. A new distance of D = 620 ± 20 kpc has been measured from the positions of the tip of the red giant branch, the red clump, and the horizontal branch. The mean metallicity of the stars older than 8 Gyr is [Fe/H] = -1.5 ± 0.3. The most recent generation of stars has [Fe/H] ≈ -1. For the first few Gyr the global star formation rate was several times higher than the historical average and has been fairly constant since then. However, we do see significant changes in stellar populations and star formation history with radial position in the galaxy. Most of the young stars are found in the central 63 pc (21''), where the star formation rate has been relatively constant, while the outer parts have had a declining star formation rate.

The detection of the Fermi Bubbles suggests that spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way can undergo active periods. Using gamma-ray observations, we can investigate the possibility that such structures are present in other nearby galaxies. We have analyzed the region around the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier Catalog M31) for signs of bubble-like emission using TeV gamma ray data recorded by the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory. We fit a model consisting of two 6 kpc bubbles symmetric about and perpendicular to the M31 galactic plane and assume a power-law distribution for the gamma-ray flux. We compare the emission from these bubble regions to that expected from structures similar to the Fermi Bubbles found in the Milky Way. No significant emission was observed. We report upper limits on the TeV flux from Fermi Bubble structures in M31.

We present very deep spectrophotometry of 14 bright extragalactic H?II regions belonging to spiral, irregular, and blue compact galaxies. The data for 13 objects were taken with the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer on the Keck I telescope. We have measured C?II recombination lines in 10 of the objects and O?II recombination lines in eight of them. We have determined electron temperatures from line ratios of several ions, especially those of low ionization potential. We have found a rather tight linear empirical relation between T e([N?II]) and T e([O?III]). We have found that O?II lines give always larger abundances than [O?III] lines. Moreover, the difference of both O++ abundance determinations?the so-called abundance discrepancy factor?is very similar in all the objects, with a mean value of 0.26 ? 0.09 dex, independent of the properties of the H?II region and of the parent galaxy. Using the observed recombination lines, we have determined the O, C, and C/O radial abundance gradients for three spiral galaxies: M33, M101, and NGC 2403, finding that C abundance gradients are always steeper than those of O, producing negative C/O gradients across the galactic disks. This result is similar to that found in the Milky Way and has important implications for chemical evolution models and the nucleosynthesis of C.

Andromeda galaxy (M31,NGC224) is the biggest spiral in the Local Group. By studying the star formation history(SFH) and chemical evolution of M31, and comparing with the Milky Way Galaxy, we are able to understand more about the formation and evolution of spiral galaxies.

RR Lyrae stars are powerful tools to study their host populations. Information such as distance, metallicity, reddening, and age can be obtained from their pulsation properties. Dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies are the most common type of galaxy in the Local Group. They are found around massive hosts such as the Milky Way (MW) and M31 and are suggested to be the present-day counterparts to systems from which spheroids and stellar halos of larger galaxies were assembled. By comparing RR Lyraes in these dSphs with their host galaxies, we hope to understand more about the formation of these galaxies. In order to achieve this goal, we have analyzed six fields in M31 using archival imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope. Published data for M31, M33, and several M31 dSphs are also included. The results are then compared with those in the MW to better constrain the early history of these systems.