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Aims. The formation scenario of extended counter-rotating stellar disks in galaxies is still debated. In this paper, we study the S0 galaxy IC 719 known to host two large-scale counter-rotating stellar disks in order to investigate their formation mechanism. Methods. We exploit the large field of view and wavelength coverage of the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) spectrograph to derive two-dimensional (2D) maps of the various properties of the counter-rotating stellar disks, such as age, metallicity, kinematics, spatial distribution, the kinematical and chemical properties of the ionized gas, and the dust map. Results. Due to the large wavelength range, and in particular to the presence of the Calcium Triplet λλ8498, 8542, 8662 Å (CaT hereafter), the spectroscopic analysis allows us to separate the two stellar components in great detail. This permits precise measurement of both the velocity and velocity dispersion of the two components as well as their spatial distribution. We derived a 2D map of the age and metallicity of the two stellar components, as well as the star formation rate and gas-phase metallicity from the ionized gas emission maps. Conclusions. The main stellar disk of the galaxy is kinematically hotter, older, thicker and with larger scale-length than the secondary disk. There is no doubt that the latter is strongly linked to the ionized gas component: they have the same kinematics and similar vertical and radial spatial distribution. This result is in favor of a gas accretion scenario over a binary merger scenario to explain the origin of counter-rotation in IC 719. One source of gas that may have contributed to the accretion process is the cloud that surrounds IC 719. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims. As the nearest large spiral galaxy, M31 provides a unique opportunity to study the structure and evolutionary history of this galaxy type in great detail. Among the many observing programs aimed at M31 are microlensing studies, which require good threedimensional models of the stellar mass distribution. Possible non-axisymmetric structures like a bar need to be taken into account. Due to M31's high inclination, the bar is difficult to detect in photometry alone. Therefore, detailed kinematic measurements are needed to constrain the possible existence and position of a bar in M31. Methods. We obtained ≈220 separate fields with the optical integral-field unit spectrograph VIRUS-W, covering the whole bulge region of M31 and parts of the disk. We derived stellar line-of-sight velocity distributions from the stellar absorption lines, as well as velocity distributions and line fluxes of the emission lines Hβ, [O III] and [N I]. Our data supersede any previous study in terms of spatial coverage and spectral resolution. Results. We find several features that are indicative of a bar in the kinematics of the stars, we see intermediate plateaus in the velocity and the velocity dispersion and correlation between the higher moment h3 and the velocity. The gas kinematics is highly irregular, but is consistent with non-triaxial streaming motions caused by a bar. The morphology of the gas shows a spiral pattern, with seemingly lower inclination than the stellar disk. We also look at the ionization mechanisms of the gas, which happens mostly through shocks and not through starbursts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most massive elliptical galaxies have low-density centers or cores that differ dramatically from the high-density centers of less massive ellipticals and bulges of disk galaxies. These cores have been interpreted as the result of mergers of supermassive black hole binaries, which depopulate galaxy centers by gravitationally slingshotting central stars toward large radii. Such binaries naturally form in mergers of luminous galaxies. Here, we analyze the population of central stellar orbits in 11 massive elliptical galaxies that we observed with the integral field spectrograph SINFONI at the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope. Our dynamical analysis is orbit-based and includes the effects of a central black hole, the mass distribution of the stars, and a dark matter halo. We show that the use of integral field kinematics and the inclusion of dark matter is important to conclude on the distribution of stellar orbits in galaxy centers. Six of our galaxies are core galaxies. In these six galaxies, but not in the galaxies without cores, we detect a coherent lack of stars on radial orbits in the core region and a uniform excess of radial orbits outside of it: when scaled by the core radius rb, the radial profiles of the classical anisotropy parameter β(r) are nearly identical in core galaxies. Moreover, they quantitatively match the predictions of black hole binary simulations, providing the first convincing dynamical evidence for core scouring in the most massive elliptical galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the KMOS3D survey, a new integral field survey of over 600 galaxies at 0.7 < z < 2.7 using KMOS at the Very Large Telescope. The KMOS3D survey utilizes synergies with multi-wavelength ground- and space-based surveys to trace the evolution of spatially resolved kinematics and star formation from a homogeneous sample over 5 Gyr of cosmic history. Targets, drawn from a mass-selected parent sample from the 3D-HST survey, cover the star formation-stellar mass (M*) and rest-frame (U – V) – M* planes uniformly. We describe the selection of targets, the observations, and the data reduction. In the first-year of data we detect Hα emission in 191 M* = 3 × 109-7 × 1011M☼ galaxies at z = 0.7-1.1 and z = 1.9-2.7. In the current sample 83% of the resolved galaxies are rotation dominated, determined from a continuous velocity gradient and vrot/σ0 > 1, implying that the star-forming “main sequence” is primarily composed of rotating galaxies at both redshift regimes. When considering additional stricter criteria, the Hα kinematic maps indicate that at least ∼70% of the resolved galaxies are disk-like systems. Our high-quality KMOS data confirm the elevated velocity dispersions reported in previous integral field spectroscopy studies at z ≳ 0.7. For rotation-dominated disks, the average intrinsic velocity dispersion decreases by a factor of two from 50 km s–1at z ∼ 2.3 to 25 km s–1at z ∼ 0.9. Combined with existing results spanning z ∼ 0-3, we show that disk velocity dispersions follow an evolution that is consistent with the dependence of velocity dispersion on gas fractions predicted by marginally stable disk theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]