An Analysis of the Environment and Gas Content of Luminous Infrared Galaxies

Abstract Title of Dissertation: An Analysis of the Environment and Gas Content of Luminous Infrared Galaxies Bevin Ashley Zauderer, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor Stuart N. Vogel Department of Astronomy Luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs) represent a population among the most extreme in our universe, emitting an extraordinary amount of energy at infrared wavelengths from dust heated by prolific star formation and/or an active galactic nucleus (AGN). We present three investigations of U/LIRGs to better understand their global environment, their interstellar medium properties, and their nuclear region where molecular gas feeds a starburst or AGN. To study the global environment, we compute the spatial cluster-galaxy amplitude, Bgc, for 76 z < 0.3 ULIRGs. We find the environment of ULIRGs is similar to galaxies in the field. Comparing our results with other galactic populations, we conclude that ULIRGs might be a phase in the lives of AGNs and QSOs, but not all moderate-luminosity QSOs necessarily pass through a ULIRG phase. To study the interstellar medium properties, we observe H I and other spectral lines in 77 U/LIRGs with the Arecibo telescope. We detect H I in emission or absorption in 61 of 77 galaxies, 52 being new detections. We compute the implied gas mass for galaxies with emission, and optical depths and column densities for the seven sources with absorption detections. To study the molecular gas in the nuclear region of LIRG Arp 193, sub-arcsecond scale angular resolution is required and a method of atmospheric phase correction imperative. We present results of a large experiment observing bright quasars to test the limitations of the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy’s Paired Antenna Calibration System (C-PACS) for atmospheric phase correction. We conclude that C-PACS improves imaging capabilities when the atmospheric calibrator is nearby ( 6◦), bright (> 1 Jy), and at moderately high elevation ≤ (> 45◦). We map Arp 193 in 12CO(2-1) with CARMA, achieving 0.18′′ 0.12′′ × ( 65 pc) resolution, and demonstrating an improvement with C-PACS. We compute ∼ 9 a molecular gas mass of 2 10 M⊙ and find 20% of the total mass is in the form × ∼ of molecular gas out to a radius of 750 pc. In the inner 150 pc of the nucleus, 25 −2 N(H2) > 10 cm . An Analysis of the Environment and Gas Content of Luminous Infrared Galaxies by Bevin Ashley Zauderer Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland at College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 Advisory Committee: Professor Stuart N. Vogel, chair Professor Alberto D. Bolatto Dr. Emmanuel Momjian Professor Rachel T. Pinker Professor Sylvain Veilleux c Bevin Ashley Zauderer 2010 Preface This thesis was written under the joint supervision of University of Maryland pro- fessors Stuart Vogel, Sylvain Veilleux and Alberto Bolatto. It is divided into five chapters and four appendices. Chapter 2, “The Environment of Local Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies,” was previously published in its entirety as Zauderer et al. (2007). Followup work com- pleted since publication, under the additional guidance of Professor Sukyoung Yi of Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, is summarized in Appendix C. Results based on Chapter 2 were presented at the First Korea-Japan Workshop on Galaxy Evolution and at the University of Maryland Graduate Research Interaction Day (GRID), both in 2008. Chapter 3 was written under the additional guidance of Dr. Emmanuel Momjian of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Dr. Chris Salter and Dr. Tapasi Ghosh of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) at the Arecibo Observatory, and is a continuation of the radio spectral line survey of luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs), published by Fernandez et al. (2010). The majority of Chapter 3 will be published as Part II of this survey (Zauderer et al., in prepara- tion), with the survey completion (Part III) and sample analysis forthcoming. Early results based on Chapter 3 were presented at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) January 2010 meeting (Zauderer et al. 2010). ii Chapter 4 will be submitted in its entirety for publication in the near future, with a number of co-authors listed in the Acknowledgements. Results based on Chapter 4 were presented in 2009 at the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter Astronomy (CARMA) Science Symposium, at the Fourth North American ALMA Science Center Conference (Assembly, Gas Content and Star Formation History of Galaxies), and at the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology by high school student summer interns Roger G. Curley and Dalton C. Wu. Data presented in Clemens and Alexander (2004) were obtained via private communication and used for comparative analysis (i.e., Figures 4.15 and 4.16) with the author’s permission. Appendices A and B were submitted to the CARMA Memoranda series on September 2, 2008 and June 16, 2009 as Memorandum 49 and 51, respectively. The CARMA Memoranda series is available electronically to the community at http://www.mmarray.org/memos/. Appendix A, “Single-Dish Aperture Efficiency Measurements at CARMA,” was guided by and written with Dr. Stephen M. White (Space Vehicles Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory). Appendix B, “Shad- owing in the CARMA E-Array,” was guided by and written with Dr. Peter J. Teuben (University of Maryland). Permission to reproduce copyrighted portions of Nature articles was obtained by the author on October 15, 2010 and includes license number 2530020309008 for article “The New Observatory at Vienna” (Nature 1876) and license number 2530020550757 for article “Another Monster Refractor” (Nature 1875). Figures that are taken from the published literature or online resources include: Figure 1.1 generated using the photometric data plotting tool from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, Figure 1.2 from NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team- ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans, Figure 1.3 compiled from a digitization of Herschel (1858) by the Armagh Observatory (www.arm.ac.uk), Figure 1.4 from the iii European Southern Observatory (www.spacetelescope.org), Figure 1.5 courtesy of the NAIC-Arecibo Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation, Figure 1.6c courtesy of the CARMA observatory (www.mmarray.org), Figure 1.7 generated by Nicola Schneider via private communication with the author, Figure 1.8 from Fernandez et al. (2010), Figure 1.9 first published as Figure 7 by Zwicky (1956), and Figure 1.10 from Veilleux et al. (1995). Online resources utilized include the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), NASA’s Astrophysics Data System (ADS) Abstract Service, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Hyper- Leda database (http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr), the Historic IC Catalog from Dr. W. Steinicke’s archive (www.klima-luft.de/steinicke), and Google Book Search http://books.google.com/. iv כְּבֹד ֱ א ִ להים הַ ֵ סְתּר ָ דָּבר וּ כְבֹד מְ ִ לָכים חֲקֹר דָּבָֽר: משלי כ“ה ב‘ v Acknowledgements There are a number of people and institutions which have supported the work presented in this thesis, which I would like to formally acknowledge. Chapter 2 For the research presented in Chapter 2, I would like to thank Sylvain Veilleux for hiring me as a second-year graduate student to begin work on this project, and introducing me to the subject matter that would become the focus for my studies throughout graduate school. I also thank Howard Yee for hosting me at the University of Toronoto for several weeks and for his patience as I was learning methods of pho- tometry analysis. Sylvain, Howard and I thank D.C. Kim for his help in organizing the data set we used. Partial support for the research in Chapter 2 was funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) CA- REER grant AST 98-74973 and NASA grant 1263752 issued by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. For the followup research, summarized in Appendix C, I would like to thank Professor Sukyoung Yi and his Galaxy Evolution Meeting (GEM) vi research group for hosting me during the summer of 2008 at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. I thank Joo Heon Yoon for helping me an- alyze a subset of my galaxies with his spectro-photometric environment analysis tools. Financial support for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation through the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) under Grant No. 0813179 and co-sponsored by the National Research Foundation of Korea (formerly, the Korean Science Foundation). Chapter 3 For the research presented in Chapter 3, I would like to first thank and acknowledge David Rupke for sharing with me his idea of doing an H I survey of LIRGs. I thank my collaborators, Tapasi Ghosh, Chris Salter and Emmanuel Momjian for giving me the opportunity to pick up the survey where it was left off by former REU summer student, Ximena Fernández. Support for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant No. AST 0808075. I also acknowledge and thank the Arecibo Observatory scientists, engi- neers and staff, especially Phil Perillat for the large amount of code he maintains for data reduction. The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), which is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Chapter 4 The work presented in Chapter 4 will be published with a large number of co-authors including advisors Stuart Vogel and Alberto Bolatto, Laura Peréz, John Carpenter, John Carlstrom, Tom Culver- house, James Lamb, Erik Leitch, Dick Plambeck, Marc Pound, Dan vii Marrone, Lee Mundy, Peter Teuben, Dave Woody and Melvyn Wright.

Load more