Infrared Galaxies in the Nearby Universe

We used the Sloan Digital Sky Survey （SDSS） Data Release 5 （DR5） to study the morphological properties of 1137 nearby infrared （IR） galaxies, most of which are brighter than 15.9 mag in r-band. This sample was drawn from a cross-correlation of the Infra-Red Astronomical Satellite （IRAS） point source catalog redshift survey with DR5 at z ≤ 0.08. Based on this IR galaxy sample, we constructed five volume-limited sub-samples with IR luminosity ranging from 10^9.5 L⊙ to 10^12L⊙. By deriving the IR luminosity functions （LF） for different morphological types, we found that normal spiral galaxies are the dominant population below LIR ~ 8 ~ 10^10 L⊙; while the fraction of barred spiral galaxies increases with increasing IR luminosity and becomes dominant in spiral galaxies beyond LIR ≈ 5 × 10^10L⊙. As the IR luminosity decreases, the IR galaxies become more compact and have lower stellar masses. The analysis also shows that normal spiral galaxies give the dominant contribution to the total comoving IR energy density in the nearby universe, while, in contrast, the contribution from peculiar galaxies is only 39%.

Galaxy Interactions in Filaments and Sheets:Insights from EAGLE Simulations

We study the color and star formation rates of paired galaxies in filaments and sheets using the EAGLE simulations.We find that the major pairs with pair separation<50 kpc are bluer and more star-forming in filamentary environments compared to those hosted in sheet-like environments.This trend reverses beyond a pair separation of~50 kpc.The interacting pairs with larger separations(>50 kpc)in filaments are on average redder and low-star-forming compared to those embedded in sheets.The galaxies in filaments and sheets may have different stellar mass and cold gas mass distributions.Using a KS test,we find that for paired galaxies with pair separation<50 kpc,there are no significant differences in these properties in sheets and filaments.The filaments transport gas toward the cluster of galaxies.Some earlier studies find preferential alignment of galaxy pairs with the filament axis.Such alignment of galaxy pairs may lead to different gas accretion efficiency in galaxies residing in filaments and sheets.We propose that the enhancement of star formation rate at smaller pair separation in filaments is caused by the alignment of galaxy pairs.A recent study with SDSS data reports the same findings.The confirmation of these results by the EAGLE simulations suggests that the hydrodynamical simulations are powerful theoretical tools for studying galaxy formation and evolution in the cosmic web.

Gaseous versus Stellar Velocity Dispersion in Emission-Line Galaxies

We compare the ionized gas velocity dispersion σgas with the stellar velocity dispersion σ＊ in star-forming galaxies, composite galaxies, Low Ionization Nuclear Emissionline Regions （LINERs） and Seyfert 2s, compiled from a cross-identification of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Fourth Data Release （SDSS DR4） and Point Source Catalogue Redshift Survey （PSCz）. We measure σgas from the FWHMs of emission lines （Hα, [NⅡ]λλ6548, 6583 and [SⅡ]λλ6716, 6731）. A significant correlation between the gas and stellar velocity dispersion exists, despite substantial scatter. The mean value of the gas to stellar velocity dispersion ratio is close to unity. This suggests that gas velocity dispersion can substitute for the stellar velocity dispersion as a tracer of the gravitational potential well for all the four types of galaxies, but the involved uncertainties are different from type to type. We also studied -↑σgas, as a function of the redshift and the axial ratio to test the effects of aperture and galaxy inclination, and found that both effects are weak. Finally we checked the trend of -↑σgas/σ＊ with the infrared luminosity and found no significant correlation.

The discovery of 64 luminous infrared galaxies in the LAMOST Complete Spectroscopic Survey of Pointing Area at the Southern Galactic Cap

We report the discovery of 64 luminous infrared galaxies, based on new observations of 20 square degrees from the LAMOST Complete Spectroscopic Survey of Pointing Area at the Southern Galactic Cap and the WISE 22 μm catalog from the AllW ISE Data Release. Half of them are classified as late-type spirals and the others are classified as peculiar/compact galaxies. The peculiar/compact galaxies tend to exhibit higher luminosities and lower stellar masses. We also separate AGNs from HII galaxies in a simple way by examining LAMOST spectra. Those cases show that host AGNs are easily distinguished from others in the mid-infrared color-color diagrams.

Soft X-ray Properties of Ultraluminous IRAS Galaxies

We report on the results of cross-correlation of a sample of 903 Ultraluminous IRAS galaxies (ULIRGs) with the ROSAT-All Sky Survey Bright Source Catalogue and the ROSAT archived pointing observations. The sample of ULIRGs has been compiled from the recently released PSCz redshift survey. In total, 35 ULIRGs are securely detected by the ROSAT All-Sky Survey and pointing observations, five of which are blazars. The statistical properties of these sources in the soft X-ray band are determined and compared with their properties in other wavebands. We find that the ratio of the soft X-ray to the far-infrared flux spans about five orders of magnitude and reaches Values of about unity. This ratio is a good indicator of the main energy source of ULIRGs. Those with soft X-ray to far-infrared flux exceeding 0.01 are probably powered by accretion onto central supermassive black holes while those with ratios smaller than 0.001 are probably powered by starbursts or other heating processes, or are Compton thick sources. Some ULIRGs have energy contributions from both. This ratio is low for most ULIRGs and hyperluminous infrared galaxies, which explains their low detection rate by ROSAT and ASCA. We also find that some ULIRGs have a similar soft X-ray luminosity vs. temperature relation to that for groups of galaxies and elliptical galaxies, suggesting a common origin of these systems. Our study also reveals a tight correlation between the hardness ratio and the soft X-ray luminosity for Seyfert 1s/QSOs.

PHoToNs–A parallel heterogeneous and threads oriented code for cosmological N-body simulation

We introduce a new code for cosmological simulations, PHo To Ns, which incorporates features for performing massive cosmological simulations on heterogeneous high performance computer(HPC) systems and threads oriented programming. PHo To Ns adopts a hybrid scheme to compute gravitational force, with the conventional Particle-Mesh(PM) algorithm to compute the long-range force,the Tree algorithm to compute the short range force and the direct summation Particle-Particle(PP) algorithm to compute gravity from very close particles. A self-similar space filling a Peano-Hilbert curve is used to decompose the computing domain. Threads programming is advantageously used to more flexibly manage the domain communication, PM calculation and synchronization, as well as Dual Tree Traversal on the CPU+MIC platform. PHo To Ns scales well and efficiency of the PP kernel achieves68.6% of peak performance on MIC and 74.4% on CPU platforms. We also test the accuracy of the code against the much used Gadget-2 in the community and found excellent agreement.

The Evolution of Advanced Merger (U)LIRGs on the Color-Stellar Mass Diagram

Based on a sample of 79 local advanced merger （adv-merger） （U）LIRGs, we search for evidence of quenching processes by investigating the distributions of star formation history indicators （EW（Ha）, EW（HfiA） and D,（4000）） on the NUV-r color-mass and SFR-M, diagrams. The distributions of EW（Ha） and Dn（4000） on the NUV-r color-mass diagram show clear trends that at a given stellar mass, galaxies with redder NUV-r colors have smaller EW（Ha） and larger Dn （4000）. The reddest adv-merger （U）LIRGs close to the green valley mostly have Dn（4000）〉 1.4. In addition, in the SFR-M, diagram, as the SFR decreases, the EW（Ha） decreases and the Dn （4000） increases, implying that the adv-merger （U）LIRGs on the star formation main sequence have more evolved stellar populations than those above the main sequence. These results indicate that a fraction of the adv-merger （U）LIRGs have already exhibited signs of fading from the starburst phase and that the NUV-r reddest adv-merger （U）LIRGs are likely at the initial stage of post-starbursts with an age of - 1 Gyr, which is consistent with the gas exhaustion time-scales. Therefore, our results offer additional support for the fast evolutionary track from the blue cloud to the red sequence.

A sample of galaxy pairs identified from the LAMOST spectral survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

A small fraction （〈 10%） of the SDSS main galaxy （MG） sample has not been targeted with spectroscopy due to the effect of fiber collisions. These galaxies have been compiled into the input catalog of the LAMOST ExtraGAlactic Surveys and named the complementary galaxy sample. In this paper, we introduce this project and status of the spectroscopies associated with the complementary galaxies in the first two years of the LAMOST spectral survey （till Sep. of 2014）. Moreover, we present a sample of 1102 galaxy pairs identified from the LAMOST complementary galaxies and SDSS MGs, which are defined as two members that have a projected distance smaller than 100 h^-01kpc and a recessional velocity difference smaller than 500 km s-1. Compared with galaxy pairs that are only selected from SDSS, the LAMOST- SDSS pairs have the advantages of not being biased toward large separations and therefore act as a useful supplement in statistical studies of galaxy interaction and galaxy merging.

Modeling the dynamical friction timescale of a sinking satellite

When a satellite galaxy falls into a massive dark matter halo, it suffers from the dynamical friction force which drags it into the halo＇s center, where it finally merges with the central galaxy. The time interval between entry and merger is called the dynamical friction timescale （Tdf）. Many studies have been dedicated to deriving Tdf using analytical models or N-body simulations. These studies have obtained qualitative agreements on how Zdf depends on the orbital parameters, and the mass ratio between the satellite and the host＇s halo. However, there are still disagreements on deriving an accurate form for Tdf. We present a semi-analytical model to predict Tdf and we focus on interpreting the discrepancies among different studies. We find that the treatment of mass loss from the satellite by tidal stripping dominates the behavior of Tdf. We also identify other model parameters which affect the predicted Tdf.

The potential of FAST in detecting celestial hydroxyl masers and related science topics

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope(FAST) will make contributions to studies of Galactic and extragalactic masers. This telescope, with construction finished and now undergoing commissioning, has an innovative design that leads to the highest sensitivity of any single dish radio telescope in the world. FAST's potential for OH megamaser research is discussed, including the sky density of masers detectable in surveys. The scientific impact expected from FAST maser studies is also discussed.

Observational evidence for the evolution of nuclear metallicity and star formation rate with the merger stage

We investigate the evolution of nuclear gas-phase oxygen abundance and star formation rate（SFR） of local far-infrared selected star-forming galaxies along the merger sequence, as traced by their optical morphologies. The sample was drawn from a cross-correlation analysis of the IRAS Point Source Catalog Redshift Survey and 1 Jy ultraluminous infrared galaxy sample with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 database. The investigation is done by comparing our sample to a control sample matched in the normalized redshift distribution in two diagnostics, which are the nuclear gas-phase metallicity vs.stellar mass and the nuclear SFR vs. stellar mass diagrams. Galaxies with different morphological types show different mass-metallicity relations（MZRs）. Compared to the MZR defined by the control sample,isolated spirals have comparable metallicities with the control sample at a given stellar mass. Spirals in pairs and interacting galaxies with projected separations of rp 〉 20 kpc show a mild metallicity dilution of0.02–0.03 dex. Interacting galaxies with rp 〈 20 kpc, pre-mergers and advanced mergers are underabundant by～0.06,～0.05 and～0.04 dex, respectively. This shows an evolutionary trend that the metallicity is increasingly depressed as the merging proceeds and it is diluted most dramatically when two galaxies are closely interacting. Afterwards, the interstellar medium（ISM） is enriched when the galaxies coalesce.This is the first time that such ISM enrichment at the final coalescence stage has been observed, which demonstrates the importance of supernova explosions in affecting the nuclear metallicity. Moreover, the central SFR enhancement relative to the control sample evolves simultaneously with the nuclear gas-phase oxygen abundance. Our results support the predictions from numerical simulations.

Time Scales and Tidal Effects in Minor Mergers

We use controlled N-body simulation to investigate the dynamical processes(dynamical friction, tidal truncation, etc.) involved in the merging of small satellites into biggerhalos. We confirm the validity of some analytic formulae proposed earlier based on simplearguments. For rigid satellites represented by softened point masses, the merging time scale dependson both the orbital shape and concentration of the satellite. The dependence on orbital ellipticityis roughly a power law, as suggested by Lacey & Cole, and the dependence on satellite concentrationis similar to that proposed by White. When merging satellites are represented by non-rigid objects,Tidal effects must be considered. We found that material beyond the tidal radius are stripped off.The decrease in the satellite mass might mean an increase in the merging time scale, but in fact,the merging time is decreased, because the stripped-off material carries away a proportionatelylarger amount of of orbital energy and angular momentum.

An isolated compact galaxy triplet

We report the discovery of an isolated compact galaxy triplet SDSS J084843.45＋164417.3, which is first detected by the LAMOST spectral survey and then confirmed by a spectroscopic observation of the BFOSC mounted on the 2.16 meter telescope located at Xinglong Station, which is administered by National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is found that this triplet is an iso- lated and extremely compact system, which has an aligned configuration and very small radial velocity dispersion. The member galaxies have similar colors and show marginal star formation activities. These results support the opinion that the compact triplets are well-evolved systems rather than hierarchically forming structures. This serendipitous discovery reveals the limitations of fiber spectral redshift surveys in studying such a compact system, and demonstrates the necessity of additional observations to complete the current redshift sample.

A sample of E+A galaxy candidates in the Second Data Release of LAMOST Survey

A sample of 70 E＋A galaxies is selected from 37 206 galaxies in the second data release of the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope（LAMOST）. This sample is selected according to the criteria for E＋A galaxies defined by Goto, and each of these objects is further visually identified. In this sample, most objects are low redshift E＋A galaxies with z 〈 0.25, and are located in an area of the sky with high Galactic latitude and magnitude from 14 to 18 mag in the g, r and i bands. A stellar population analysis of the whole sample indicates that the E＋A galaxies are characterized by both young and old stellar populations（SPs）, and the metalrich SPs have relatively higher contributions than the metal-poor ones. Additionally, a morphological classification of these objects is performed based on images taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

The Long-term Survival Chances of Young Massive Star Clusters

We review the long-term survival chances of young massive star clusters （YMCs）, hallmarks of intense starburst episodes often associated with Violent galaxy interactions. We address the key question as to whether at least some of these YMCs can be considered protoglobular clusters （GCs）, in which case these would be expected to evolve into counterparts of the ubiquitous old GCs believed to be among the oldest galactic building blocks. In the absence of significant external perturbations, the key factor determining a cluster＇s long-term survival chances is the shape of its stellar initial mass function （IMF）. It is, however, not straightforward to assess the IMF shape in unresolved extragalactic YMCs. We discuss in detail the promise of using high-resolution spectroscopy to make progress towards this goal, as well as the numerous pitfalls associated with this approach. We also discuss the latest progress in worldwide efforts to better understand the evolution of entire cluster systems, the disruption processes they are affected by, and whether we can use recently gained insights to determine the nature of at least some of the YMCs observed in extragalactic starbursts as proto-GCs. We conclude that there is an increasing body of evidence that GC formation appears to be continuing until today; their long-term evolution crucially depends on their environmental conditions, however.

Isolated Main Galaxy Pairs from the SDSS Data Release 4

From the Main galaxy data of the SDSS Data Release 4 （SDSS4）, we have identiffed close galaxy pairs at neighbourhood radius R = 100 kpc by three-dimensional cluster analysis. Using the criterion that an ＂isolated galaxy pair＂ must be separated from its ＂nearest neighbor＂ by more than 500 kpc, we constructed an isolated galaxy pair sample of 1158 pairs. We also constructed a random pair sample by randomly selecting 1158 galaxy pairs from the Main galaxy sample, which has the same redshift distribution as the isolated galaxy pair sample, and in which the two components of any pair have the same redshifts. Comparative studies of luminosity and size between the members of the galaxy pairs are performed. We find and further confirm there is no tendency for paired galaxies to have similar luminosities or sizes. From the isolated pair sample we also selected a subsample with the magnitude limit of the primary raised by 2 magnitudes, so as to include pairs in which the secondary is 2 magnitudes fainter than the primary. This subsample contains 82 pairs. A random pair sample is similarly constructed.

Kinematic properties of the dual AGN system J0038+4128 based on long-slit spectroscopy

The study ofkiloparsec-scale dual active galactic nuclei （AGN） provides important clues for understanding the co-evolution between host galaxies and their central supermassive black holes undergoing a merging process. We present long-slit spectroscopy of J0038 ＋4128, a kiloparsec-scale dual AGN candidate, discovered recently by Huang et al., using the Yunnan Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera （YFOSC） mounted on the Lijiang 2.4-m telescope administered by Yunnan Observatories. From the long-slit spectra, we find that the average relative line-of-sight （LOS） velocity between the two nuclei （J0038＋4128N and J0038＋4128S） is about 150 km s-1. The LOS velocities of the emission lines from the gas ionized by the nuclei activities and of the absorption lines from stars governed by the host galaxies for different regions of J0038＋4128 exhibit the same trend. The same trend in velocities indicates that the gaseous disks are co-rotating with the stellar disks in this ongoing merging system. We also find several knots/giant H II regions scattered around the two nuclei with strong star formation revealed by the observed line ratios from the spectra. Those regions are also clearly detected in images from HST F336W/U-band and HST F555W/V-band.