Using Surface Brightness Fluctuations to Study nearby Satellite Galaxy Systems: The Complete Satellite System of M101

Carlsten, Scott G.; Beaton, Rachael L.; Greco, Johnny P.; Greene, Jenny E.

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab24d2

Cited by 40 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Since these groups are quite sparse (compared to Virgo or Fornax, for instance), contamination is often quite high, and candidates selected on their low-surface brightness, diffuse morphology alone can often consist of a majority (> 80%, e.g. Carlsten et al 2019aCarlsten et al , 2020a of background contaminants. In studying the star clusters of dwarfs, it is crucial we only consider satellites that have distance confirmation.…”

Section: Elves Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

ELVES II: Globular Clusters and Nuclear Star Clusters of Dwarf Galaxies: the Importance of Environment

Carlsten

Greene

Beaton

et al. 2022

ApJ

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present the properties of the globular clusters (GCs) and nuclear star clusters (NSCs) of low-mass (105.5 < M ⋆ < 108.5 M ⊙) early-type satellites of Milky Way–like and small group hosts in the Local Volume (LV) using deep, ground-based data from the ongoing Exploration of Local VolumE Satellites Survey. This sample of 177 dwarfs significantly increases the statistics for studying the star clusters of dwarfs in low-density environments, offering an important comparison to samples from nearby galaxy clusters. The LV dwarfs exhibit significantly lower nucleation fractions at fixed galaxy mass than dwarfs in nearby clusters. The masses of NSCs of LV dwarfs show a similar scaling of M ⋆ , NSC ∝ M ⋆ , gal 0.4 as that found in clusters but offset to lower NSC masses. To deal with foreground/background contamination in the GC analysis, we employ both a statistical subtraction and Bayesian approach to infer the average GC system properties from all dwarfs simultaneously. We find that the GC occupation fraction and average abundance are both increasing functions of galaxy stellar mass, and the LV dwarfs show significantly lower average GC abundance at fixed galaxy mass than a comparable sample of Virgo dwarfs analyzed in the same way, demonstrating that GC prevalence also shows an important secondary dependence on the dwarf’s environment. This result strengthens the connection between GCs and NSCs in low-mass galaxies. We discuss these observations in the context of modern theories of GC and NSC formation, finding that the environmental dependencies can be well explained by these models.

show abstract

Section: Elves Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

ELVES II: Globular Clusters and Nuclear Star Clusters of Dwarf Galaxies: the Importance of Environment

Carlsten

Greene

Beaton

et al. 2022

ApJ

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Since these groups are quite sparse (compared to Virgo or Fornax, for instance), background contaminates can often consist of a majority (> 80%, e.g. Carlsten et al 2019aCarlsten et al , 2020a) of candidate satellites selected on their low-surface brightness, diffuse morphology. The inferred physical properties of dwarfs clearly depends on their distance, thus it is crucial we only consider satellite systems that have full (or nearly full) distance information.…”

Section: Elves Sample Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structures of Dwarf Satellites of Milky Way-like Galaxies: Morphology, Scaling Relations, and Intrinsic Shapes

Carlsten

Greene

Greco

et al. 2021

ApJ

Self Cite

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The structure of a dwarf galaxy is an important probe of the effects of stellar feedback and environment. Using an unprecedented sample of 223 low-mass satellites from the ongoing Exploration of Local Volume Satellites survey, we explore the structures of dwarf satellites in the mass range 105.5 < M ⋆ < 108.5 M ⊙. We survey satellites around 80% of the massive, M K < − 22.4 mag, hosts in the Local Volume (LV). Our sample of dwarf satellites is complete to luminosities of M V <−9 mag and surface brightness μ 0,V < 26.5 mag arcsec−2 within at least ∼200 projected kpc of the hosts. For this sample, we find a median satellite luminosity of M V = −12.4 mag, median size of r e = 560 pc, median ellipticity of ϵ = 0.30, and median Sérsic index of n = 0.72. We separate the satellites into late- and early-type (29.6% and 70.4%, respectively). The mass–size relations are very similar between them within ∼5%, which indicates that the quenching and transformation of a late-type dwarf into an early-type one involves only very mild size evolution. Considering the distribution of apparent ellipticities, we infer the intrinsic shapes of the early- and late-type samples. Combining with literature samples, we find that both types of dwarfs are described roughly as oblate spheroids that get more spherical at fainter luminosities, but early-types are always rounder at fixed luminosity. Finally, we compare the LV satellites with dwarf samples from the cores of the Virgo and Fornax clusters. We find that the cluster satellites show similar scaling relations to the LV early-type dwarfs but are roughly 10% larger at fixed mass, which we interpret as being due to tidal heating in the cluster environments. The dwarf structure results presented here are a useful reference for simulations of dwarf galaxy formation and the transformation of dwarf irregulars into spheroidals.

show abstract

“…To date, only a handful of galaxies have been surveyed at a level comparable to the classical satellites of the MW. These include M31 (McConnachie et al 2009;Martin et al 2016;McConnachie et al 2018), M81 (Chiboucas et al 2009(Chiboucas et al , 2013, Centaurus A (Crnojević et al 2014(Crnojević et al , 2019Müller et al 2017Müller et al , 2015Müller et al , 2019, M94 (Smercina et al 2018), and M101 (Danieli et al 2017;Bennet et al 2017;Carlsten et al 2019a;Bennet et al 2019Bennet et al , 2020.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Luminosity Functions and Host-to-Host Scatter of Dwarf Satellite Systems in the Local Volume

Carlsten,

Greene,

Peter

et al. 2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Low-mass satellites around Milky Way (MW)-like galaxies are important probes of small scale structure and galaxy formation. However, confirmation of satellite candidates with distance measurements remains a key barrier to fast progress in the Local Volume (LV). We measure the surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) distances to recently cataloged candidate dwarf satellites around 10 massive hosts within D < 12 Mpc to confirm association. The satellite systems of these hosts are complete and mostly cleaned of contaminants down to M g ∼ − 9 to −10, within the area of the search footprints. Joining this sample with hosts surveyed to comparable or better completeness in the literature, we explore how well cosmological simulations combined with common stellar to halo mass relations (SHMR) match observed satellite luminosity functions in the classical satellite luminosity regime. Adopting a SHMR that matches hydrodynamic simulations, the predicted overall satellite abundance agrees well with the observations. The MW is remarkably typical in its luminosity function amongst LV hosts. Contrary to recent results, we find that the host-to-host scatter predicted by the model is in close agreement with the scatter between the observed systems, once the different masses of the observed systems are taken into account. However, we find significant evidence that the observed systems have more bright and fewer faint satellites than the SHMR model predicts, necessitating a higher normalization of the SHMR around halo masses of 10 11 M than present in common SHMRs. These results demonstrate the utility of nearby satellite systems in inferring the galaxy-subhalo connection in the low-mass regime.

show abstract

Using Surface Brightness Fluctuations to Study nearby Satellite Galaxy Systems: The Complete Satellite System of M101

Cited by 40 publications

References 45 publications

ELVES II: Globular Clusters and Nuclear Star Clusters of Dwarf Galaxies: the Importance of Environment

ELVES II: Globular Clusters and Nuclear Star Clusters of Dwarf Galaxies: the Importance of Environment

Structures of Dwarf Satellites of Milky Way-like Galaxies: Morphology, Scaling Relations, and Intrinsic Shapes

Luminosity Functions and Host-to-Host Scatter of Dwarf Satellite Systems in the Local Volume

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About