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The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) is a second generation VLT panoramic integral-field spectrograph operating in the visible wavelength range. MUSE has a field of 1x1 arcmin(2) sampled at 0.20.2 arcsec(2) and is assisted by a ground layer adaptive optics system using four laser guide stars. The simultaneous spectral range is 0.465-0.93 mum, at a resolution of Rsimilar to3000. MUSE couples the discovery potential of a large imaging device to the measuring capabilities of a high-quality spectrograph, while taking advantage of the increased spatial resolution provided by adaptive optics. This makes MUSE a unique and tremendously powerful instrument for discovering and characterizing objects that lie beyond the reach of even the deepest imaging surveys. MUSE has also a high spatial resolution mode with 7.5x7.5 arcsec(2) field of view sampled at 25 milli-arcsec. In this mode MUSE should be able to get diffraction limited data-cube in the 0.6-1 mum wavelength range. Although MUSE design has been optimized for the study of galaxy formation and evolution, it has a wide range of possible applications; e.g. monitoring of outer planets atmosphere, young stellar objects environment, supermassive black holes and active nuclei in nearby galaxies or massive spectroscopic survey of stellar fields.

Kinematic and population studies show that bulges are generally rotationally flattened systems similar to low-luminosity ellipticals. However, observations with state-of-the-art integral field spectrographs, such as SAURON, indicate that the situation is much more complex, and allow us to investigate phenomena such as triaxiality, kinematic decoupling and population substructure, and to study their connection to current formation and evolution scenarios for bulges of early-type galaxies. We present the examples of two S0 bulges from galaxies in our sample of nearby galaxies: one that shows all the properties expected from classical bulges (NGC5866), and another case that presents kinematic features appropriate for barred disk galaxies (NGC7332)., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publishing in AN (refereed conf. proc. of the Euro3D Science workshop, IoA Cambridge, May 2003)

NGC5018, one of the weakest UV emitters among giant ellipticals (gE) observed with IUE, appears to consist of an optical stellar population very similar to that of the compact, dwarf elliptical M32, which is several magnitudes fainter in luminosity than NGC5018 and whose stellar population is know to be ~3 Gyr old. Here we show that the mid-UV spectra of these two galaxies are also very similar down to an angular scale hundreds times smaller than the IUE large aperture (as probed by HST/FOS UV spectra obtained through 0.86 arcsec apertures). This implies a reasonably close match of the populations dominating their mid-UV light (namely, their main-sequence turnoff stars). These data indicate that NGC5018 has, in its inner regions, a rather uniform dominance of a ~3 Gyr-old stellar population, probably a bit different in metallicity from M32. Combined with the various structures that indicate that NGC5018 is the result of a recent major merger, it appears that almost all of stars we see in its center regions were formed about 3 Gyr ago, in that merger event. NGC5018 is likely the older brother of NGC7252, the canonical gE-in-formation merger. As such, NGC5018 is perhaps the best galaxy which can tell us how a merger works, after the fireworks subside, to form a gE galaxy today. For this reason alone, the stellar populations in NGC5018 at all radii are worth studying in detail., 4 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

We have developed a method to construct realistic triaxial dynamical models for elliptical galaxies, allowing us to derive best-fitting parameters, such as the mass-to-light ratio and the black hole mass, and to study the orbital structure. We use triaxial theoretical Abel models to investigate the robustness of the method., 2 pages (1 figure), to appear in the proceedings of the IAU Symposium 220 "Dark matter in galaxies", eds. S. Ryder, D.J. Pisano, M. Walker and K. Freeman

By incorporating spatial coverage with the spectral dimension, integral-field spectroscopy is uniquely suited for exploiting the capabilities of adaptive optics (AO) systems. OASIS is a lenslet-based integral-field spectrograph designed to perform high-resolution observations on AO-corrected sources, operating at visible wavelengths. This instrument was commissioned at the William Herschel Telescope, La Palma, in July 2003 to work with the ING's AO system, NAOMI. Here we present an overview of the capabilities of the OASIS+NAOMI system, and show results obtained using this technique. The science presented here is a small preview of what will be possible for a large number of objects when the GLAS laser guide system is operational.

In around ≈25% of early-type galaxies (ETGs) UV emission from young stellar populations is present. Molecular gas reservoirs have been detected in these systems (e.g. Young et al. (2011), providing the fuel for this residual star-formation. The environment in which this molecular gas is found is quite different than that in spiral galaxies however, with harsher radiation fields, deeper potentials and high metallicity and alpha-element abundances. Here we report on one element of our multi-faceted programme to understand the similarities and differences between the gas reservoirs in spirals and ETGs. We use spatially resolved observations from the CARMA mm-wave interferometer to investigate the size of the molecular reservoirs in the the CO-rich ATLAS3D ETGs (survey described in Alatalo et al. 2012, submitted). We find that the molecular gas extent is smaller in absolute terms in ETGs than in late-type galaxies, but that the size distributions are similar once scaled by the galaxies optical/stellar characteristic scale-lengths (Fig 1, left). Amongst ETGs, we find that the extent of the molecular gas is independent of the kinematic misalignment, despite the many reasons why misaligned gas might have a smaller extent. The extent of the molecular gas does depend on environment, with Virgo cluster ETGs having less extended molecular gas reservoirs (Fig 1, right). Whatever the cause, this further emphases that cluster ETGs follow different evolutionary pathways from those in the field. Full details of this work will be presented in Davis et al. (2012), submitted.

We use long-slit spectroscopy along the major axis of a sample of 23 nearby disk galaxies to study the kinematic properties of the ionized-gas component in their inner regions. For each galaxy, we derive the position-velocity diagram of the ionized gas from its emission lines. We discuss the variety of shapes observed in such position-velocity diagrams by comparing the gas velocity gradient, velocity dispersion and integrated flux measured in the inner (r +/-1'') and outer regions (r +/-4''). This kind of analysis allows the identification of galaxies which are good candidates to host a circumnuclear Keplerian gaseous disk rotating around a central mass concentration, and to follow up with Hubble Space Telescope observations., Comment: 17 pages. 5 PostScript figures (Fig. 2 at lower resolution). Accepted for publication in A&A

We report recent results from the photometric follow-up study we are conducting in the context of the SAURON project. We use ground-based MDM V -band and Spitzer/IRAC 3.6 μm imaging to characterise our sample of E, S0 and Sa galaxies photometrically. Combined with SAURON integral-field spectroscopic observations, this information allows us to explore and understand the location of these galaxies on the Fundamental Plane relation, providing an important diagnostic tool to study their formation and evolution.

The R-band isophotal map of the Sa galaxy NGC 4698 shows that the inner region of the bulge structure is elongated perpendicularly to the major axis of the disk, this is also true for the outer parts of the bulge if a parametric photometric decomposition is adopted. At the same time the stellar component is characterized by an inner velocity gradient and a central zero-velocity plateau along the minor and major axis of the disk respectively. This remarkable geometric and kinematic decoupling suggests that a second event occurred in the formation history of this galaxy., Comment: 12 pages, LaTex, with 4 PostScript figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

We report the case of the geometrical and kinematical decoupling between the bulge and the disk of the Sa galaxy NGC 4698. The R-band isophotal map of this spiral shows that the bulge structure is elongated perpendicularly to the major axis of the disk. At the same time a central stellar velocity gradient is found along the major axis of the bulge. We also present the Sa NGC 4672 as good candidate of a spiral hosting a bulge and a disk orthogonally decoupled with respect to one other. This decoupling of the two fundamental components of a visible galaxy suggests that the disk could represent a second event in the history of early-type spirals., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (LaTeX, cupconf.sty). To appear in "The Formation of Bulges" C. M. Carollo, H. C. Ferguson, R. F. G. Wyse (eds.), Cambridge University Press

In this paper we demonstrate the possibility of inferring the presence of Keplerian gaseous disks using optical ground-based telescopes properly equipped. We have modeled the peculiar bidimensional shape of the emission lines in a sample of five S0-Sa galaxies as due to the motion of a gaseous disk rotating in the combined potential of a central point-like mass and of an extended stellar disk. The value of the central mass concentration estimated for four galaxies of the sample (NGC 2179, NGC 4343, NGC 4435 and NGC 4459) is ~10^9 Msolar. For the remaining galaxy NGC 5064 an upper limit of 5*10^7 Msolar is estimated., Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, with 3 PostScript figures, Submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters

We have developed an orbit-based method for constructing triaxial models of elliptical galaxies, which fit their observed surface brightness and kinematics (van den Bosch et al). We have tested this extended Schwarzschild method (1979) against analytical models with general distribution functions (DF) and find that we can recover the DF (van de Ven et al). Here, we present a model of NGC 4365.

[Abridged] We present the results of new near-IR spectroscopic observations of passive galaxies at z>1.4 in a concentration of BzK-selected galaxies in the COSMOS field. The observations have been conducted with Subaru/MOIRCS, and have resulted in absorption lines and/or continuum detection for 18 out of 34 objects. This allows us to measure spectroscopic redshifts for a sample almost complete to K(AB)=21. COSMOS photometric redshifts are found in fair agreement overall with the spectroscopic redshifts, with a standard deviation of ~0.05; however, ~30% of objects have photometric redshifts systematically underestimated by up to ~25%. We show that these systematic offsets in photometric redshifts can be removed by using these objects as a training set. All galaxies fall in four distinct redshift spikes at z=1.43, 1.53, 1.67 and 1.82, with this latter one including 7 galaxies. SED fits to broad-band fluxes indicate stellar masses in the range of ~4-40x10^10Msun and that star formation was quenched ~1 Gyr before the cosmic epoch at which they are observed. The spectra of several individual galaxies have allowed us to measure their Hdelta_F and Dn4000 indices, which confirms their identification as passive galaxies, as does a composite spectrum resulting from the coaddition of 17 individual spectra. The effective radii of the galaxies have been measured on the HST/ACS F814W image, confirming the coexistence at these redshifts of passive galaxies which are substantially more compact than their local counterparts with others that follow the local size-stellar mass relation. For the galaxy with best S/N spectrum we were able to measure a velocity dispersion of 270+/-105 km/s, indicating that this galaxy lies closely on the virial relation given its stellar mass and effective radius., Comment: 26 pages, 24 figures, 5 tables, in emulateapj format; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

We provide observational constraints on disk galaxy evolution for a sample of 28 local edge-on early-type (S0–Sb) disk galaxies. We do this in two ways: (i) we use simple dynamical modelling techniques to constrain their stellar and dark matter content (Williams et al. 2009) and (ii) we compare the zero points of the Tully-Fisher relations (TFRs; Tully & Fisher 1977) of the spirals and S0s.

We present K-band adaptive-optics assisted spectroscopic observations of the central region of the archetype head-tail radio galaxy NGC 1265 (3C 83.1), with the aim of constraining the mass of the supermassive black hole (MBH). The near-infrared data taken with the Altair–NIRI system on the Gemini North have a spatial resolution of FWHM = 0.”11 (39 pc, at the galaxy's distance of 73 Mpc).

It has become generally accepted that most or possibly all ellipticals and bulges of spirals harbor supermassive black holes in their center (see Ho 1998 for a recent review).

In this poster contribution, we present results from high spatial resolution integral-field spectroscopy of elliptical (E) and lenticular (S0) galaxies from the SAURON representative survey, obtained with the OASIS and GMOS spectrographs. These seeing-limited observations explore the central ∼10''10″ (typically one kiloparsec diameter) regions of these galaxies using a spatial sampling four times higher than SAURON (0″27 vs. 0″94 spatial elements), resulting in almost a factor of two improvement in the median PSF. These data allow accurate study of the central regions to complement the large-scale view provided by SAURON. We derive the stellar and gas kinematics, stellar absorption-line strengths and nebular emission-line strengths for our sample, and derive maps of the luminosity-weighted stellar age, metallicity and abundance ratio via stellar population models. From these data we find a wealth of structures either not seen or poorly resolved in the SAURON data, including a number of kinematically-decoupled cores (KDCs) in the centres of some galaxies. We compare the intrinsic size and luminosity-weighted stellar age of all the visible KDCs in the full SAURON sample, and find two types of components: kiloparsec-scale KDCs, which are older than 8 Gyr, and are found in galaxies with little net rotation; and compact KDCs, which have intrinsic diameters of less than a few hundred parsec, show a range of stellar ages from 0.5 - 15 Gyr (with 5/6 younger than 5 Gyr), are found exclusively in fast-rotating galaxies, and are close to counter-rotating around the same axis as their host. Of the 7 galaxies in the SAURON sample with integrated luminosity-weighted ages less than 5 Gyr, 5 show such compact KDCs, suggesting a link between counter-rotation and recent star-formation. We show that this may be partly due to a combination of small sample size at young ages, and an observational bias, since young KDCs are easier to detect than their older and/or co-rot ating counterparts.

HST images of the E galaxies NGC 1399 and NGC 4552 and of the Sa NGC 2681 were obtained with FOC f/96 through the filters F175W, F220W, F275W and F342W. The most important discovery of these observations is the clear detection of central spikes in NGC 2681 and NGC 4552, that are prominent in each of the FOC images. No spike is detected in NGC 1399. The spikes appear unresolved by the 0″.07 core of the Pre-COSTAR PSF, corresponding to a physical size V = 16.4 for the spike in NGC 2681 and V = 18.4 for that in NGC 4552, or ~ 107L⊙ in both cases. The spikes contribute less than a few percent of the UV flux sampled by IUE. We can offer three options for their nature: a central burst of star formation; effects of stellar interaction in a very dense environment; and a low level AGN. The first two options are currently entertained for the origin of the very dense star cluster at the center of our own Galaxy, whose size and luminosity are comparable to the corresponding limits for the two UV spikes (Genzel et al. 1994). A much fainter central spike (~ 105L⊙) is also seen at the center of NGC 205, and appears to be consistent with a modest burst of star formation (Bertola et al. 1995).

The kinematics and stellar populations of the low-mass nearby S0 galaxy NGC 5102 are studied from integral field spectra taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE). The kinematic maps reveal for the first time that NGC 5102 has the characteristic 2 sigma peaks indicative of galaxies with counter-rotating discs. This interpretation is quantitatively confirmed by fitting two kinematic components to the observed spectra. Through stellar population analysis we confirm the known young stellar population in the centre and find steep age and metallicity gradients. We construct axisymmetric Jeans anisotropic models of the stellar dynamics to investigate the initial mass function (IMF) and the dark matter halo of the galaxy. The models show that this galaxy is quite different from all galaxies previously studied with a similar approach: even within the half-light radius, it cannot be approximated with the self-consistent mass-follows-light assumption. Including an NFW dark matter halo, we need a heavy IMF and a dark matter fraction of 0.37+-0.04 within a sphere of one effective radius to describe the stellar kinematics. The more general model with a free slope of the dark matter halo shows that slope and IMF are degenerate, but indicates that a light weight IMF (Chabrier-like) and a higher dark matter fraction, with a steeper (contracted) halo, fit the data better. Regardless of the assumptions about the halo profile, we measure the slope of the total mass density to be -1.75+-0.04. This is shallower than the slope of -2 of an isothermal halo and shallower than published slopes for more massive early type galaxies., 20 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

This thesis describes and discusses different techniques that can be used to detect black holes (BHs) in galactic nuclei and to estimate their mass. The properties of the central regions of a number of galaxies observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are analyzed in detail, with the aim of identifying dynamical and/or photometric signatures of the presence of nuclear BHs as well of the process that led to their formation in the context of the formation of the host galaxy itself.

We present our mass estimate of the central black hole in the isolated spiral galaxy NGC 4414. Using natural guide star adaptive optics assisted observations with the Gemini Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer (NIFS) and the natural seeing Gemini Multi-Object Spectrographs-North (GMOS), we derived two-dimensional stellar kinematic maps of NGC 4414 covering the central 1.5 arcsec and 10 arcsec, respectively, at a NIFS spatial resolution of 0.13 arcsec. The kinematic maps reveal a regular rotation pattern and a central velocity dispersion dip down to around 105 km/s. We constructed dynamical methods using two different methods: Jeans anisotropic dynamical modeling and axisymmetric Schwarzschild modeling. Both modeling methods give consistent results, but we cannot constrain the lower mass limit and only measure an upper limit for the black hole mass of Mbh= 1.56 x 10^6 Msun(at 3 sigma level) which is at least 1 sigma below the recent Mbh-sigma_e relations. Further tests with dark matter, mass-to-light ratio variation and different light models confirm that our results are not dominated by uncertainties. The derived upper limit mass is not only below the Mbh-sigma_e relation, but is also five times lower than the lower limit black hole mass anticipated from the resolution limit of the sphere of influence. This proves that via high quality integral field data we are now able to push black hole measurements down to at least five times less than the resolution limit., Comment: 20 pages, 25 figures, accepted in A&A

We study the formation of early-type galaxies (ETGs) through mergers with a sample of 70 high-resolution numerical simulations of binary mergers of disc galaxies. These simulations encompass various mass ratios, initial conditions and orbital parameters. We find that binary mergers of disc galaxies with mass ratios of 3:1 and 6:1 are nearly always classified as Fast Rotators according to the Atlas3D criterion: they preserve the structure of the input fast rotating spiral progenitors. Major disc mergers (mass ratios of 2:1 and 1:1) lead to both Fast and Slow Rotators. Most of the Slow Rotators hold a stellar Kinematically Distinct Core (KDC) in their 1-3 central kilo-parsec: these KDCs are built from the stellar components of the progenitors. The mass ratio of the progenitors is a fundamental parameter for the formation of Slow Rotators in binary mergers, but it also requires a retrograde spin for the progenitor galaxies with respect to the orbital angular momentum. The importance of the initial spin of the progenitors is also investigated in the library of galaxy mergers of the GalMer project., Comment: 4 pages; to appear on the Conference Proceedings for "Galaxy Mergers in an Evolving Universe", held in Hualien, Taiwan (October 2011)

We present a detailed study of the nuclear star clusters (NSCs) and massive black holes (BHs) of four of the nearest low-mass early-type galaxies: M32, NGC205, NGC5012, and NGC5206. We measure dynamical masses of both the BHs and NSCs in these galaxies using Gemini/NIFS or VLT/SINFONI stellar kinematics, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging, and Jeans Anisotropic Models. We detect massive BHs in M32, NGC5102, and NGC5206, while in NGC205, we find only an upper limit. These BH mass estimates are consistent with previous measurements in M32 and NGC205, while those in NGC5102 and NGC5206 are estimated for the first time, and both found to be $, Comment: 30 pages, 13 figures, 12 tables. Accepted to ApJ

The panoramic integral-field spectrograph SAURON is currently being used to map the stellar kinematics, gaseous kinematics, and stellar populations of a large number of early-type galaxies and bulges. Here, we describe SAURON observations of cold stellar disks embedded in spheroids (NGC3384, NGC4459, NGC4526), we illustrate the kinematics and ionization state of large-scale gaseous disks (NGC4278, NGC7742), and we show preliminary comparisons of SAURON data with barred galaxy N-body simulations (NGC3623)., 8 pages including 5 figures. To appear in Galaxies: The Third Dimension, eds. M. Rosado, L. Binnette, & L. Arias (ASP: San Francisco)

Cappellari (2008) presented a flexible and efficient method to model the stellar kinematics of anisotropic axisymmetric and spherical stellar systems. The spherical formalism could be used to model the line-of-sight velocity second moments allowing for essentially arbitrary radial variation in the anisotropy and general luminous and total density profiles. Here we generalize the spherical formalism by providing the expressions for all three components of the projected second moments, including the two proper motion components. A reference implementation is now included in the public JAM package available at http://purl.org/cappellari/software, 3 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX. Not submitted anywhere but here. Software implementing the update to the JAM method described in this paper is available at http://purl.org/cappellari/software

Atlas3D is a new survey based on integral-field spectroscopy for a complete, volume-limited sample of 260 early-type galaxies observed within the local 40 Mpc volume - the largest survey of its kind. This K-band selected sample spans a range in mass from 10e10 to 10e12 solar masses, and probes two orders of magnitude in local galaxy density, giving a significantly larger range in mass and environment than previous works of this kind. We present our analysis of the global stellar populations of this sample derived from apertures integrated from our IFU data. These data allow tight control of aperture effects, and give a complete view of the galaxy properties within an effective radius. Trends with mass and other galaxy properties are explored. We find a trend that older galaxies are more compact at a given galaxy mass, and have experienced more rapid star formation at earlier times than younger galaxies of the same mass, as indicated by stellar abundance ratios. This contrasts with a simple picture of downsizing, and suggests additional parameters control the star formation history of these galaxies than only their mass. The trend of size and age is in agreement with recent findings of massive, compact passive galaxies at higher redshifts. We also show preliminary results of non-parametric star-formation histories derived from spectral fitting of our data. These strongly indicate that, despite the presence of young stars and even ongoing star formation, the overwhelming majority of stellar mass in early-type galaxies formed at early epochs, though the assembly into the current systems may have proceeded on different time-scales.

Motivated by recent progress in the study of early-type galaxies owing to technological advances, the launch of new space telescopes and large ground-based surveys, we attempt a short review of our current understanding of the recent star-formation activity in such intriguing galactic systems., Comment: 8 pages, to appear in "Pathways Through an Eclectic Universe", J. H. Knappen, T. J. Mahoney, and A. Vazedekis (Eds.), ASP Conf. Ser., 2007

A self-consistent analysis of near-UV, HST/FOC images of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4552 is used to show that its central spike has brightened by a factor ˜ 4.5 between 1991 and 1993, and has decreased its luminosity by a factor ˜ 2.0 between 1993 and 1996. A strong UV continuum over the energy distribution of the underlying galaxy is concurrently revealed shortward of λ ˜ 3200 Å by our FOS spectra extending from the near-UV to red wavelengths. Nuclear emission-line profiles of both permitted and forbidden lines are best modelled with a combination of broad and narrow components, with FWHM of ˜ 3000 km s−1 and ˜ 700 km s−1, respectively. Current diagnostics based on the emission line intensity ratios definitely places the spike among AGNs, just at the border between Seyferts and LINERs. This evidence argues for the variable central spike being produced by a modest accretion event onto a central massive black hole (BH), with the accreted material having possibly being stripped from a star in a close fly-by with the BH. In this regard, one has to look at NGC 4552 as the faintest known AGN.