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Chemical abundance variations in the ISM provide important information about the galactic evolution, star-formation and enrichment histories. Recent observations of disk galaxies suggest that if large-scale azimuthal metallicity variations appear in the ISM, they are linked to the spiral arms. In this work, using a set of chemodynamical simulations of the Milky Way-like spiral galaxies, we quantify the impact of gas radial motions~(migration) in the presence of a pre-existing radial metallicity gradient and the local ISM enrichment on both global and local variations of the mean ISM metallicity in the vicinity of the spiral arms. In all the models, we find the scatter of the gas metallicity of \approx0.04-0.06 dex at a given galactocentric distance. On large scales, we observe the presence of spiral-like metallicity patterns in the ISM which are more prominent in models with the radial metallicity gradient. However, in our simulations, the morphology of the large-scale ISM metallicity distributions significantly differs from the spiral arms structure in stellar/gas components resulting in both positive and negative residual~(after subtraction of the radial gradient) metallicity trends along spiral arms. We discuss the correlations of the residual ISM metallicity values with the star formation rate, gas kinematics and offset to the spiral arms, concluding that the presence of a radial metallicity gradient is essential for the azimuthal variations of metallicity. At the same time, the local enrichment alone is unlikely to drive systematic variations of the metallicity across the spirals., Comment: A&A in press

Context. Differential enrichment between α and Fe-peak elements is known to be strongly connected with the shape of the star formation history (SFH), the star formation efficiency (SFE), the inflow and outflow of material, and even the shape of the initial mass function (IMF). However, beyond the Local Group, detailed explorations are mostly limited to early-type galaxies due to the lack of a good proxy for [α/Fe] in late-type ones, limiting our understanding of the chemical enrichment process. Aims. We intent to extend the explorations of [α/Fe] to late-type galaxies in order to understand the details of the differential enrichment process. Methods. We compare the gas-phase oxygen abundance with the luminosity-weighted stellar metallicity in an extensive catalogue of 25 000 H II regions extracted from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey, an exploration that uses the integral-field spectroscopy of 900 galaxies and covers a wide range of masses and morphologies. This way, we define [O/Fe] as the ratio between both parameters, proposing it as an indirect proxy of the [α/Fe] ratio. This procedure is completely different from the one adopted to estimate [α/Fe] from high-resolution spectroscopic data for stars in our Galaxy. Results. We illustrate how the [O/Fe] parameter describes the chemical enrichment process in spiral galaxies, finding that: (i) it follows the decreasing pattern with [Fe/H] reported for the [α/Fe] ratio and (ii) its absolute scale depends on the stellar mass and the morphology. We reproduce both patterns using two different chemical evolution models, considering that galaxies with different stellar masses and morphologies present either different SFHs, SFEs, and inflow and outflow rates or a different maximum stellar mass cut for the IMF. We will explore the differential chemical enrichment using this new proxy galaxy by galaxy and region by region in further studies. © ESO 2021., SFS and J.B.-B. thanks CONACYT for grants CB-285080 and FC-2016-01-1916, and PAPIIT-DGAPA-IN100519 (UNAM) project. C.M. thanks UNAM/PAPIIT-IN101220. J.B.-B. thanks IA-100420 (DGAPA-PAPIIT, UNAM) and CONACYT grant CF19-39578 support. L.G. thanks M.S.-Curie grant 839090. R.G.B. acknowledges support from grants SEV-2017-0709 and P18-FRJ-2595. This study uses data provided by the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey (http://califa.caha.es/), observed at the Calar Alto Obsevatory.

Our understanding of the structure, composition and evolution of galaxies has strongly improved in the last decades, mostly due to new results based on large spectroscopic and imaging surveys. In particular, the nature of ionized gas, its ionization mechanisms, its relation with the stellar properties and chemical composition, the existence of scaling relations that describe the cycle between stars and gas, and the corresponding evolution patterns have been widely explored and described. More recently, the introduction of additional techniques, in particular Integral Field Spectroscopy, and their use in large galaxy surveys, have forced us to re-interpret most of those recent results from a spatially resolved perspective. This review is aimed to complement recent efforts to compile and summarize this change of paradigm in the interpretation of galaxy evolution. In particular we cover three particular aspects not fully covered in detail in recent reviews: (i) the spatially resolved nature of the ionization properties in galaxies and the confusion introduced by considering just integrated quantities; (ii) the nature of the global scaling relations and their relations with the spatially resolved ones; and (iii) the dependence of the radial gradients and characteristic properties of the stellar populations and ionized gas on stellar mass and galaxy morphology. To this end we replicate published results, and present novel ones, based on the largest compilation of IFS data of galaxies in the nearby universe to date., 42 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in RMxAA

We present stellar metallicity measurements of more than 600 late-type stars in the central 10 pc of the Galactic Centre. Together with our previously published KMOS data, this data set allows us to investigate, for the first time, spatial variations of the nuclear star cluster's metallicity distribution. Using the integral-field spectrograph KMOS (VLT), we observed almost half of the area enclosed by the nuclear star cluster's effective radius. We extract spectra at medium spectral resolution and apply full spectral fitting utilizing the PHOENIX library of synthetic stellar spectra. The stellar metallicities range from [M/H] = −1.25 dex to [M/H] > +0.3 dex, with most of the stars having supersolar metallicity. We are able to measure an anisotropy of the stellar metallicity distribution. In the Galactic north, the portion of subsolar metallicity stars with [M/H] < 0.0 dex is more than twice as high as in the Galactic south. One possible explanation for different fractions of subsolar metallicity stars in different parts of the cluster is a recent merger event. We propose to test this hypothesis with high-resolution spectroscopy and by combining the metallicity information with kinematic data. © 2020 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society, N. N. and F. N.-L. gratefully acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 138713538 – SFB 881 (‘The Milky Way System’, subproject B8). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement n. [614922] (RS and FNL). R. S. and F. N. L. acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the ‘Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa’ award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). R. S. acknowledges financial support from national project PGC2018-095049-B-C21 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). A. C. S. acknowledges financial support from NSF grant AST-1350389. This research made use of the SIMBAD data base (operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France). This research made use of Montage. It is funded by the National Science Foundation under grant number ACI-1440620 and was previously funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Earth Science Technology Office, Computation Technologies Project, under Cooperative Agreement Number NCC5-626 between NASA and the California Institute of Technology.

Large multi-object spectroscopic surveys require automated algorithms to optimise their observing strategy. One of the most ambitious upcoming spectroscopic surveys is the 4MOST survey. The 4MOST survey facility is a fibre-fed spectroscopic instrument on the VISTA telescope with a large enough field of view to survey a large fraction of the southern sky within a few years. Several Galactic and extragalactic surveys will be carried out simultaneously, so the combined target density will strongly vary. In this paper, we describe a new tiling algorithm that can naturally deal with the large target density variations on the sky and which automatically handles the different exposure times of targets. The tiling pattern is modelled as a marked point process, which is characterised by a probability density that integrates the requirements imposed by the 4MOST survey. The optimal tilling pattern with respect to the defined model is estimated by the tiles configuration that maximises the proposed probability density. In order to achieve this maximisation a simulated annealing algorithm is implemented. The algorithm automatically finds an optimal tiling pattern and assigns a tentative sky brightness condition and exposure time for each tile, while minimising the total execution time that is needed to observe the list of targets in the combined input catalogue of all surveys. Hence, the algorithm maximises the long-term observing efficiency and provides an optimal tiling solution for the survey. While designed for the 4MOST survey, the algorithm is flexible and can with simple modifications be applied to any other multi-object spectroscopic survey., Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRAS

[Abridged] We present the apparent stellar angular momentum of 300 galaxies across the Hubble sequence, using integral-field spectroscopic data from the CALIFA survey. Adopting the same $\lambda_\mathrm{R}$ parameter previously used to distinguish between slow and fast rotating early-type (elliptical and lenticular) galaxies, we show that spiral galaxies as expected are almost all fast rotators. Given the extent of our data, we provide relations for $\lambda_\mathrm{R}$ measured in different apertures, including conversions to long-slit 1D apertures. Our sample displays a wide range of $\lambda_\mathrm{Re}$ values, consistent with previous IFS studies. The fastest rotators are dominated by relatively massive and highly star-forming Sb galaxies, which preferentially reside in the main star-forming sequence. These galaxies reach $\lambda_\mathrm{Re}$ values of $\sim$0.85, are the largest galaxies at a given mass, and display some of the strongest stellar population gradients. Compared to the population of S0 galaxies, our findings suggest that fading may not be the dominant mechanism transforming spirals into lenticulars. Interestingly, we find that $\lambda_\mathrm{Re}$ decreases for late-type Sc and Sd spiral galaxies, with values than in occasions puts them in the slow-rotator regime. While for some of them this can be explained by their irregular morphologies and/or face-on configurations, others are edge-on systems with no signs of significant dust obscuration. The latter are typically at the low-mass end, but this does not explain their location in the classical ($V/\sigma$,$\varepsilon$) and ($\lambda_\mathrm{Re}$,$\varepsilon$) diagrams. Our initial investigations, based on dynamical models, suggest that these are dynamically hot disks, probably influenced by the observed important fraction of dark matter within R$_\mathrm{e}$., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, A&A accepted

Post-starburst galaxies can be identified via the presence of prominent Hydrogen Balmer absorption lines in their spectra. We present a comprehensive study of the origin of strong Balmer lines in a volume-limited sample of 189 galaxies with $0.019.5$ and projected axis ratio $b/a>0.32$. We explore their structural properties, environments, emission lines and star formation histories, and compare them to control samples of star-forming and quiescent galaxies, and simulated galaxy mergers. Excluding contaminants, in which the strong Balmer lines are most likely caused by dust-star geometry, we find evidence for three different pathways through the post-starburst phase, with most events occurring in intermediate-density environments: (1) a significant disruptive event, such as a gas-rich major merger, causing a starburst and growth of a spheroidal component, followed by quenching of the star formation (70% of post-starburst galaxies at $9.510.5$); (2) at $9.510.5$, cyclic evolution of quiescent galaxies which gradually move towards the high-mass end of the red sequence through weak starbursts, possibly as a result of a merger with a smaller gas-rich companion (40%). Our analysis suggests that AGN are `on' for $50%$ of the duration of the post-starburst phase, meaning that traditional samples of post-starburst galaxies with strict emission line cuts will be at least $50%$ incomplete due to the exclusion of narrow-line AGN., Comment: Accepted by MNRAS; 19 figures, 39 pages

We investigate the cosmic evolution of the absolute and specific star formation rate (SFR, sSFR) of galaxies as derived from a spatially resolved study of the stellar populations in a set of 366 nearby galaxies from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. The sample spans stellar masses from M ∼ 10 to 10M and a wide range of Hubble types. The analysis combines images obtained with the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX; far-ultraviolet and near-ultraviolet) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; u; g; r; i; z) with the 4000 Å break, Hβ, and [MgFe]′ indices measured from the CALIFA data cubes to constrain parametric models for the star formation history (SFH), which are then used to study the cosmic evolution of the SFR density (ρSFR), the sSFR, the main sequence of star formation (MSSF), and the stellar mass density (ρ). Several SFH laws are used to fit the observational constrains. A delayed-τ model, SFR ∝ (t - t) exp(-(t - t)=τ), provides the best results, in good agreement with those obtained from cosmological surveys. Our main results from this model are that (a) the mass currently in the inner (≤0:5 half-light radius, HLR) regions formed at earlier epochs than the mass in the outer (1-2 HLR) regions of galaxies. The time since the onset of the star formation is longer in the inner regions (t ∼ 13-10 Gyr) than in the outer ones (t ∼ 11-9 Gyr) for all the morphologies, while the e-folding timescale τ in the inner region is similar to or shorter than in the outer regions. These results confirm that galaxies of any Hubble type grow inside-out. (b) The sSFR declines rapidly as the Universe evolves, and faster for early- than for late-type galaxies, and for the inner than for the outer regions of galaxies. (c) The evolution of ρSFR and ρ agrees well with results from cosmological surveys, particularly with the recent results from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA), the G10-Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS), and the 3D Hubble Space Telescope (HST) survey. At low redshift, z ≤ 0:5, most star formation takes place in the outer regions of late spiral galaxies, while at z > 2; the inner regions of the progenitors of the current E and S0 are the main contributors to ρSFR. (d) Similarly, the inner regions of galaxies are the main contributor to ρ at z > 0:5, growing their mass faster than the outer regions, with a lookback time at 50% ρ of t ∼ 9 and 6 Gyr for the inner and outer regions. (e) The MSSF follows a power law at high redshift, with the slope evolving with time but always remaining sub-linear, in good agreement with the Illustris simulation. (f) In agreement with galaxy surveys at different redshifts, the average SFH of CALIFA galaxies indicates that galaxies grow their mass mainly in a mode that is well represented by a delayed-τ model, with the peak at z ∼ 2 and an e-folding time of ∼3:9 Gyr.© 2018 ESO., Support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, through projects AYA2016-77846-P, AYA2014-57490-P, AYA2010-15081, and the Junta de Andalucía FQ1580 is gratefully acknowledged.

We present a detailed exploration of the stellar mass vs. gas-phase metallicity relation (MZR) using integral field spectroscopy data obtained from ~1000 galaxies observed by the SAMI Galaxy survey. These spatially resolved spectroscopic data allow us to determine the metallicity within the same physical scale (Reff) for different calibrators. The shape of the MZ relations is very similar between the different calibrators, while there are large offsets in the absolute values of the abundances. We confirm our previous results derived using the spatially resolved data provided by the CALIFA and MaNGA surveys: (1) we do not find any significant secondary relation of the MZR with either the star formation rate (SFR) nor the specific SFR (SFR/Mass) for any of the calibrators used in this study, based on the analysis of the {individual} residuals, (2) if there is a dependence with the SFR, it is weaker than the reported one ($r_c\sim -$0.3), it is confined to the low mass regime (M*, 30 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publishing in MNRAS

We present here a review of the latest results on the spatially-resolved analysis of the stellar populations and ionized gas of disk-dominated galaxies based on Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) data. CALIFA is an ongoing integral field spectroscopy (IFS) survey of galaxies in the Local Universe (0.005 &lt, z &lt, 0.03) that has already obtained spectroscopic information up to (sim)2.5 (r_e) with a spatial resolution better than (sim)1 kpc for a total number of more than 600 galaxies of different morphological types, covering the color-magnitude diagram up to M(_{rm R}&lt, )18 mag. With nearly 2000 spectra obtained for each galaxy, CALIFA offers one of the best IFU datasets to study the star formation histories and chemical enrichment of galaxies. In this article, we focus on the main results from the analysis of the oxygen abundances based on the study of ionized gas in H II regions and individual spaxels and their relation to the global properties of galaxies, using an updated/revised dataset with more galaxies and ionized regions. In summary, we have confirmed previous published results indicating that: (1) the M-Z relation does not present a secondary relation to the star formation rate, when the abundance is measured at the effective radius, (2) the oxygen abundance presents a strong correlation with the stellar surface density (∑-Z relation), (3) the oxygen abundance profiles present three well-defined regimes: (i) an overall negative radial gradient between 0.5 and 2 (r_e), with a characteristic slope of (alpha_{O/H}) (sim)(-)0.1 dex/(r_e), (ii) a universal flattening beyond (&gt, )2 (r_e), and (iii) an inner drop at (&lt, )0.5 (r_e) that depends on mass, (4) the presence of bending in the surface brightness profile of disk galaxies is not clearly related to either the change in the shape of the oxygen abundance profile or the properties of the underlying stellar population. All of these results indicate that disk galaxies present an overall inside-out growth, with chemical enrichment and stellar mass growth tightly correlated and dominated by local processes and limited effects of radial mixing or global outflows. However, clear deviations are shown with respect to this simple scenario, which affect the abundance profiles in both the innermost and outermost regions of galaxies.

Within the central 10 pc of our Galaxy lies a dense cluster of stars, the nuclear star cluster. This cluster forms a distinct component of our Galaxy. Nuclear star clusters are common objects and are detected in ~ 75% of nearby galaxies. It is, however, not fully understood how nuclear star clusters form. The Milky Way nuclear star cluster is the closest of its kind. At a distance of only 8 kpc we can spatially resolve its stellar populations and kinematics much better than in external galaxies. This makes the Milky Way nuclear star cluster the perfect local reference object for understanding the structure and assembly history of nuclear star clusters in general. There are of the order of 107 stars within the central 10 pc of the Galactic center. Most of these stars are several Gyr old late-type stars. However, there are also more than 100 hot early-type stars in the central parsec of the Milky Way, with ages of only a few Myr. Beyond a projected distance of 0.5 pc of the Galactic center, the density of young stars was largely unknown, since only very few spectroscopic observations existed so far. We covered the central >4 pc2 (0.75 sq.arcmin) of the Galactic center using the integral-field spectrograph KMOS (VLT). We extracted more than 1,000 spectra from individual stars and identified >20 new early-type stars based on their spectra. We studied the spatial distribution of the different populations and their kinematics to put constraints on the assembly history of the Milky Way nuclear star cluster.

This paper presents the spatially resolved star formation history (SFH) of nearby galaxies with the aim of furthering our understanding of the different processes involved in the formation and evolution of galaxies. To this end, we apply the fossil record method of stellar population synthesis to a rich and diverse data set of 436 galaxies observed with integral field spectroscopy in the CALIFA survey. The sample covers a wide range of Hubble types, with stellar masses ranging from M ∼ 10 to 7 × 10 M. Spectral synthesis techniques are applied to the datacubes to retrieve the spatially resolved time evolution of the star formation rate (SFR), its intensity (Σ), and other descriptors of the 2D SFH in seven bins of galaxy morphology (E, S0, Sa, Sb, Sbc, Sc, and Sd) and five bins of stellar mass. Our main results are that (a) galaxies form very fast independently of their current stellar mass, with the peak of star formation at high redshift (z > 2). Subsequent star formation is driven by M and morphology, with less massive and later type spirals showing more prolonged periods of star formation. (b) At any epoch in the past, the SFR is proportional to M, with most massive galaxies having the highest absolute (but lowest specific) SFRs. (c) While today, the Σ is similar for all spirals and significantly lower in early-type galaxies (ETG), in the past, the Σ scales well with morphology. The central regions of today's ETGs are where the Σ reached the highest values (> 10 M Gyr pc), similar to those measured in high-redshift star-forming galaxies. (d) The evolution of Σ in Sbc systems matches that of models for Milky Way-like galaxies, suggesting that the formation of a thick disk may be a common phase in spirals at early epochs. (e) The SFR and Σ in outer regions of E and S0 galaxies show that they have undergone an extended phase of growth in mass between z = 2 and 0.4. The mass assembled in this phase is in agreement with the two-phase scenario proposed for the formation of ETGs. (f) Evidence of an early and fast quenching is found only in the most massive (M > 2 × 10 M) E galaxies of the sample, but not in spirals of similar mass, suggesting that halo quenching is not the main mechanism for the shut down of star formation in galaxies. Less massive E and disk galaxies show more extended SFHs and a slow quenching. (g) Evidence of fast quenching is also found in the nuclei of ETG and early spirals, with SFR and Σ indicating that they can be the relic of the >red nuggets> detected at high redshift.© ESO, 2017., Support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, through projects AYA2016-77846-P, AYA2014-57490-P, AYA2010-15081, and Junta de Andalucia FQ1580, AYA2010-22111-C03-03, AYA2010-10904E, AYA2013-42227P, RyC-2011-09461, AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, EU SELGIFS exchange programme FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701, CONACYT-125180, DGAPA-IA100815, and PAPIIT-DGAPA-IA101217. We also thank the Viabilidad, Diseno, Acceso y Mejora funding program, ICTS-2009-10, for funding the data acquisition of this project. A.L.d.A., E.A.D.L. and R.C.F. thanks for the hospitality of the IAA and the support of CNPq. R.G.D. acknowledges the support of CNPq (Brazil) through Programa Ciencia sem Fronteiras (401452/2012-3). C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912.

We report the detection of a highly collimated linear emission-line structure in the spiral galaxy NGC\,232 through the use of integral field spectroscopy data from the All-weather MUse Supernova Integral field Nearby Galaxies (AMUSING) survey. This jet--like feature extends radially from the nucleus and is primarily detected in [oiii]$\lambda$5007 without clear evidence of an optical continuum counterpart. The length of the radial structure projected on sky reaches $\sim 3$ kpc, which makes NGC\,232 the second longest emission-line jet reported. The ionized gas presents extreme [Oiii]/H$\beta$ and [Nii]/H$\alpha$ line ratios, increasing along the jet-like structure. We discuss three possible scenarios to explain the observed structure: (i) direct ionization of in-falling material from the intergalactic medium by the AGN; (ii) photo-ionization by an un-detected optical counter-part of the radio jet and (iii) fast shocks ionization due to the lateral expansion of the radio jet across the ISM. Our analysis favors in-situ ionization., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publishing in ApJL

Galaxies in the local Universe are known to follow bimodal distributions in the global stellar population properties. We analyse the distribution of the local average stellar population ages of 654 053 sub-galactic regions resolved on ∼1 kpc scales in a volume-corrected sample of 394 galaxies, drawn from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) DR3 integral-field-spectroscopy survey and complemented by Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging. We find a bimodal local-age distribution, with an old and a young peak primarily due to regions in early-type galaxies and star-forming regions of spirals, respectively. Within spiral galaxies, the older ages of bulges and interarm regions relative to spiral arms support an internal age bimodality. Although regions of higher stellar mass surface density, μ*, are typically older, μ* alone does not determine the stellar population age and a bimodal distribution is found at any fixed μ*. We identify an ‘old ridge’ of regions of age ∼9 Gyr, independent of μ*, and a ‘young sequence’ of regions with age increasing with μ* from 1–1.5 to 4–5 Gyr. We interpret the former as regions containing only old stars, and the latter as regions where the relative contamination of old stellar populations by young stars decreases as μ* increases. The reason why this bimodal age distribution is not inconsistent with the unimodal shape of the cosmic-averaged star formation history is that (i) the dominating contribution by young stars biases the age low with respect to the average epoch of star formation, and (ii) the use of a single average age per region is unable to represent the full time extent of the star formation history of ‘young sequence’ regions., Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 468 (2), ISSN:0035-8711, ISSN:1365-2966, ISSN:1365-8711

Spiral arms are the most singular features in disc galaxies. These structures can exhibit different patterns, namely grand design and flocculent arms, with easily distinguishable characteristics. However, their origin and the mechanisms shaping them are unclear. The overall role of spirals in the chemical evolution of disc galaxies is another unsolved question. In particular, it has not been fully explored if the H ii regions of spiral arms present different properties from those located in the interarm regions. Here we analyse the radial oxygen abundance gradient of the arm and interarm star forming regions of 63 face-on spiral galaxies using CALIFA Integral Field Spectroscopy data. We focus the analysis on three characteristic parameters of the profile: slope, zero-point, and scatter. The sample is morphologically separated into flocculent versus grand design spirals and barred versus unbarred galaxies. We find subtle but statistically significant differences betweenthe arm and interarm distributions for flocculent galaxies, suggesting that the mechanisms generating the spiral structure in these galaxies may be different to those producing grand design systems, for which no significant differences are found. We also find small differences in barred galaxies, not observed in unbarred systems, hinting that bars may affect the chemical distribution of these galaxies but not strongly enough as to be reflected in the overall abundance distribution. In light of these results, we propose bars and flocculent structure as two distinct mechanisms inducing differences in the abundance distribution between arm and interarm star forming regions.© ESO, 2017., We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) via grants AYA2012-31935 and AYA2014-53506-P, and from the >Junta de Andalucia> local government through the FQM-108 project. We also acknowledge support from the ConaCyt funding program 180125 and DGAPA IA100815. V.P.D. is supported by STFC Consolidated grant #ST/M000877/1. V.P.D. acknowledges being a part of the network supported by the COST Action TD1403 >Big Data Era in Sky and Earth Observation>. L.G. was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation under Grant AST-1311862. R.A.M. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild) and MINECO through the grant AYA2013-43188-P. I.M. acknowledges support from the Junta de Andalucia through project TIC114, and the MINECO through projects AYA2013-42227-P and AYA2016-76682C3-1-P. Y.A. is financially supported by the Ramon y Cajal programme (contract RyC-2011-09461) and project AYA2016-79724-C4-1-P from the Spanish MINECO, as well as the exchange programme SELGIFS FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701 funded by the EU. R.M.G.D. acknowledges support from the Spanish grant AYA2010-15081, and from the >Junta de Andalucia> FQ1580 project.

We estimate the current extinction-corrected H$\alpha$ star formation rate (SFR) of the different morphological components that shape galaxies (bulges, bars, and disks). We use a multi-component photometric decomposition based on SDSS imaging to CALIFA Integral Field Spectroscopy datacubes for a sample of 219 galaxies. This analysis reveals an enhancement of the central SFR and specific SFR (sSFR $=$ SFR/$M_{\star}$) in barred galaxies. Along the Main Sequence, we find more massive galaxies in total have undergone efficient suppression (quenching) of their star formation, in agreement with many studies. We discover that more massive disks have had their star formation quenched as well. We evaluate which mechanisms might be responsible for this quenching process. The presence of type-2 AGNs plays a role at damping the sSFR in bulges and less efficiently in disks. Also, the decrease in the sSFR of the disk component becomes more noticeable for stellar masses around 10$^{10.5}$ M$_{\odot}$; for bulges, it is already present at $\sim$10$^{9.5}$ M$_{\odot}$. The analysis of the line-of-sight stellar velocity dispersions ($\sigma$) for the bulge component and of the corresponding Faber-Jackson relation shows that AGNs tend to have slightly higher $\sigma$ values than star-forming galaxies for the same mass. Finally, the impact of environment is evaluated by means of the projected galaxy density, $\Sigma$$_{5}$. We find that the SFR of both bulges and disks decreases in intermediate-to-high density environments. This work reflects the potential of combining IFS data with 2D multi-component decompositions to shed light on the processes that regulate the SFR., Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, 1 table (Accepted for publication in ApJ)

Context. According to numerical simulations, stars are not always kept at their birth galactocentric distances but they have a tendency to migrate. The importance of this radial migration in shaping galactic light distributions is still unclear. However, if radial migration is indeed important, galaxies with different surface brightness (SB) profiles must display differences in their stellar population properties. Aims. We investigate the role of radial migration in the light distribution and radial stellar content by comparing the inner colour, age, and metallicity gradients for galaxies with different SB profiles. We define these inner parts, avoiding the bulge and bar regions and up to around three disc scale lengths (type I, pure exponential) or the break radius (type II, downbending; type III, upbending). Methods. We analysed 214 spiral galaxies from the CALIFA survey covering different SB profiles. We made use of GASP2D and SDSS data to characterise the light distribution and obtain colour profiles of these spiral galaxies. The stellar age and metallicity profiles were computed using a methodology based on full-spectrum fitting techniques (pPXF, GANDALF, and STECKMAP) to the Integral Field Spectroscopic CALIFA data. Results. The distributions of the colour, stellar age, and stellar metallicity gradients in the inner parts for galaxies displaying different SB profiles are unalike as suggested by Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Anderson-Darling tests. We find a trend in which type II galaxies show the steepest profiles of all, type III show the shallowest, and type I display an intermediate behaviour. Conclusions. These results are consistent with a scenario in which radial migration is more efficient for type III galaxies than for type I systems, where type II galaxies present the lowest radial migration efficiency. In such a scenario, radial migration mixes the stellar content, thereby flattening the radial stellar properties and shaping different SB profiles. However, in light of these results we cannot further quantify the importance of radial migration in shaping spiral galaxies, and other processes, such as recent star formation or satellite accretion, might play a role.© 2017 ESO., This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) under grants AYA2014-53506-P, AYA2007-67625-C02-02, AYA2014-56795-P and Consolider-Ingenio CSD2010-00064; and by the Junta de Andalucia (FQM-108). L.G. was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation under Grant AST-1311862. I.M. would like to thank support under grants AYA2013-42227-P and AYA2016-76682-C3-1-P. S.Z. has been supported by the EU Marie Curie Career Integration Grant SteMaGE No. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466 (Call Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2012 CIG). J.F.B. thanks the support received under grant AYA2016-77237-C3-1-P. A.d.L.C. acknowledges support from the CONACyT-125180, DGAPA-IA100815 and DGAPA-IA101217 projects. R.A.M. acknowledges support by the Swiss National Science Foundation. J.M.A. thanks support from the support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild) and MINECO through the grant AYA2013-43188-P.

We present an updated version of the mass--metallicity relation (MZR) using integral field spectroscopy data obtained from 734 galaxies observed by the CALIFA survey. These unparalleled spatially resolved spectroscopic data allow us to determine the metallicity at the same physical scale ($\mathrm{R_{e}}$) for different calibrators. We obtain MZ relations with similar shapes for all calibrators, once the scale factors among them are taken into account. We do not find any significant secondary relation of the MZR with either the star formation rate (SFR) or the specific SFR for any of the calibrators used in this study, based on the analysis of the residuals of the best fitted relation. However we do see a hint for a (s)SFR-dependent deviation of the MZ-relation at low masses (M$, Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publishing in MNRAS

Understanding the nature of bulges in disc galaxies can provide important insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies. For instance, the presence of a classical bulge suggests a relatively violent history. In contrast, the presence of an inner disc instead (also referred to as a >pseudobulge>) indicates the occurrence of secular evolution processes in the main disc. However, we still lack criteria to effectively categorise bulges, limiting our ability to study their impact on the evolution of the host galaxies. Here we present a recipe to separate inner discs from classical bulges by combining four different parameters from photometric and kinematic analyses: the bulge Sérsic index n, the concentration index C, the Kormendy (1977, ApJ, 217, 406) relation and the inner slope of the radial velocity dispersion profile σ. With that recipe we provide a detailed bulge classification for a sample of 45 galaxies from the integral-field spectroscopic survey CALIFA. To aid in categorising bulges within these galaxies, we perform 2D image decomposition to determine bulge Sérsic index, bulge-to-total light ratio, surface brightness and effective radius of the bulge and use growth curve analysis to derive a new concentration index, C. We further extract the stellar kinematics from CALIFA data cubes and analyse the radial velocity dispersion profile. The results of the different approaches are in good agreement and allow a safe classification for approximately 95% of the galaxies. In particular, we show that our new >inner> concentration index performs considerably better than the traditionally used C when yielding the nature of bulges. We also found that a combined use of this index and the Kormendy relation gives a very robust indication of the physical nature of the bulge.© ESO, 2017., R.G.B. and R.G.D. acknowledge support from grants AYA2014-57490-P and JA-FQM-2828. R.A.M. acknowledges support by the Swiss National Science Foundation. I.M. acknowledges financial support from grants AYA2013-42227-P and AYA2016-76682-C3-1-P. SFS thanks the CONACYT-125180, DGAPA-IA100815 and DGAPA-IA101217 projects for providing him support in this study.

We present a methodology for the regularisation and combination of sparse sampled and irregularly gridded observations from fibre-optic multi-object integral-field spectroscopy. The approach minimises interpolation and retains image resolution on combining sub-pixel dithered data. We discuss the methodology in the context of the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral-field spectrograph (SAMI) Galaxy Survey underway at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The SAMI instrument uses 13 fibre bundles to perform high-multiplex integral-field spectroscopy across a one degree diameter field of view. The SAMI Galaxy Survey is targeting 3000 galaxies drawn from the full range of galaxy environments. We demonstrate the subcritical sampling of the seeing and incomplete fill factor for the integral-field bundles results in only a 10% degradation in the final image resolution recovered. We also implement a new methodology for tracking covariance between elements of the resulting datacubes which retains 90% of the covariance information while incurring only a modest increase in the survey data volume., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, Accepted MNRAS September 2014

Within the central 10 pc of our Galaxy lies a dense cluster of stars, the nuclear star cluster, forming a distinct component of our Galaxy. Nuclear star clusters are common objects and are detected in ∼75% of nearby galaxies. It is, however, not fully understood how nuclear clusters form. Because the Milky Way nuclear star cluster is at a distance of only 8 kpc, we can spatially resolve its stellar populations and kinematics much better than in external galaxies. This makes the Milky Way nuclear star cluster a reference object for understanding the structure and assembly history of all nuclear star clusters.We have obtained an unparalleled data set using the near-infrared long-slit spectrograph ISAAC (VLT) in a novel drift-scan technique to construct an integral-field spectroscopic map of the central ∼10 × 8 pc of our Galaxy. To complement our data set we also observed fields out to a distance of ∼19 pc along the Galactic plane to disentangle the influence of the nuclear stellar disk.From this data set we extract a stellar kinematic map using the CO bandheads and an emission line kinematic map using H2 emission lines. Using the stellar kinematics, we set up a kinematic model for the Milky Way nuclear star cluster to derive its mass and constrain the central Galactic potential. Because the black hole mass in the Milky Way is precisely known, this kinematic data set will also serve as a benchmark for testing black hole mass modeling techniques used in external galaxies.

Context. The study of the integrated properties of star-forming galaxies is central to understand their formation and evolution. Some of these properties are extensive and therefore their analysis require totally covering and spatially resolved observations. Among these properties, metallicity can be defined in spiral discs by means of integral field spectroscopy (IFS) of individual H ii regions. The simultaneous analysis of the abundances of primary elements, as oxygen, and secondary, as nitrogen, also provides clues about the star formation history and the processes that shape the build-up of spiral discs. Aims. Our main aim is to analyse simultaneously O/H and N/O abundance ratios in H ii regions in different radial positions of the discs in a large sample of spiral galaxies to obtain the slopes and the characteristic abundance ratios that can be related to their integrated properties. Methods. We analysed the optical spectra of individual selected H ii regions extracted from a sample of 350 spiral galaxies of the CALIFA survey. We calculated total O/H abundances and, for the first time, N/O ratios using the semi-empirical routine Hii-Chi-mistry, which, according to Pérez-Montero (2014, MNRAS, 441, 2663), is consistent with the direct method and reduces the uncertainty in the O/H derivation using [N ii] lines owing to the dispersion in the O/H-N/O relation. Then we performed linear fittings to the abundances as a function of the de-projected galactocentric distances. Results. The analysis of the radial distribution both for O/H and N/O in the non-interacting galaxies reveals that both average slopes are negative, but a non-negligible fraction of objects have a flat or even a positive gradient (at least 10% for O/H and 4% for N/O). The slopes normalised to the effective radius appear to have a slight dependence on the total stellar mass and the morphological type, as late low-mass objects tend to have flatter slopes. No clear relation is found, however, to explain the presence of inverted gradients in this sample, and there is no dependence between the average slopes and the presence of a bar. The relation between the resulting O/H and N/O linear fittings at the effective radius is much tighter (correlation coefficient ρ = 0.80) than between O/H and N/O slopes (ρ = 0.39) or for O/H and N/O in the individual H ii regions (ρ = 0.37). These O/H and N/O values at the effective radius also correlate very tightly (less than 0.03 dex of dispersion) with total luminosity and stellar mass. The relation with other integrated properties, such as star formation rate, colour, or morphology, can be understood only in light of the found relation with mass., E.P.M., J.M.V., C.K., S.P., and J.I.P. acknowledge support from the Spanish MICINN through grants AYA2010-21887-C04-01 and AYA2013-47742-C4-1-P and the Junta de Andalucia for grant EXC/2011 FQM-7058. R.G.B., R.G.D., and E.P. acknowledge support from grants AYA2014-57490-P and JA-FQM-2828. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. L.G. acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566

This paper aims at providing aperture corrections for emission lines in a sample of spiral galaxies from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey (CALIFA) database. In particular, we explore the behavior of the log([OIII]5007/Hbeta)/([NII]6583/Halpha) (O3N2) and log[NII]6583/Halpha (N2) flux ratios since they are closely connected to different empirical calibrations of the oxygen abundances in star forming galaxies. We compute median growth curves of Halpha, Halpha/Hbeta, O3N2 and N2 up to 2.5R_50 and 1.5 disk R_eff. The growth curves simulate the effect of observing galaxies through apertures of varying radii. The median growth curve of the Halpha/Hbeta ratio monotonically decreases from the center towards larger radii, showing for small apertures a maximum value of ~10% larger than the integrated one. The median growth curve of N2 shows a similar behavior, decreasing from the center towards larger radii. No strong dependence is seen with the inclination, morphological type and stellar mass for these growth curves. Finally, the median growth curve of O3N2 increases monotonically with radius. However, at small radii it shows systematically higher values for galaxies of earlier morphological types and for high stellar mass galaxies. Applying our aperture corrections to a sample of galaxies from the SDSS survey at 0.02, Accepted for publication in ApJ

Recent improvements in the age dating of stellar populations and single stars allow us to study the ages and abundance of stars and galaxies with unprecedented accuracy. We here compare the relation between age and \alpha-element abundances for stars in the solar neighborhood to that of local, early-type galaxies. We find both relations to be very similar. Both fall into two regimes with a flat slope for ages younger than ~9 Gyr and a steeper slope for ages older than that value. This quantitative similarity seems surprising, given the different types of galaxies and scales involved. For the sample of early-type galaxies we also show that the data are inconsistent with literature delay time distributions of either single or double Gaussian shape. The data are consistent with a power law delay time distribution. We thus confirm that the delay time distribution inferred for the Milky Way from chemical evolution arguments also must apply to massive early-type galaxies. We also offer a tentative explanation for the seeming universality of the age-[\alpha/Fe] relation as the manifestation of averaging of different stellar populations with varying chemical evolution histories., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, submitted to A&A, version in reply to first referee report

We present a new morphological indicator designed for automated recognition of galaxies with faint asymmetric tidal features suggestive of an ongoing or past merger. We use this new indicator, together with preexisting diagnostics of galaxy structure to study the role of galaxy mergers in inducing (post-)starburst spectral signatures in local galaxies, and investigate whether (post-)starburst galaxies play a role in the build up of the `red sequence'. Our morphological and structural analysis of an evolutionary sample of 335 (post-)starburst galaxies in the SDSS DR7 with starburst ages 0, Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 20 pages, 13 figures

Astronomy & Astrophysics 587 (2016): A70 reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics, We measured the gas abundance profiles in a sample of 122 face-on spiral galaxies observed by the CALIFA survey and included all spaxels whose line emission was consistent with star formation. This type of analysis allowed us to improve the statistics with respect to previous studies, and to properly estimate the oxygen distribution across the entire disc to a distance of up to 3-4 disc effective radii (re). We confirm the results obtained from classical H ii region analysis. In addition to the general negative gradient, an outer flattening can be observed in the oxygen abundance radial profile. An inner drop is also found in some cases. There is a common abundance gradient between 0.5 and 2.0 re of αO/H =-0.075 dex/re with a scatter of σ = 0.016 dex/re when normalising the distances to the disc effective radius. By performing a set of Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, we determined that this slope is independent of other galaxy properties, such as morphology, absolute magnitude, and the presence or absence of bars. In particular, barred galaxies do not seem to display shallower gradients, as predicted by numerical simulations. Interestingly, we find that most of thegalaxies in the sample with reliable oxygen abundance values beyond ~2 effective radii (57 galaxies) present a flattening of the abundance gradient in these outer regions. This flattening is not associated with any morphological feature, which suggests that it is a common property of disc galaxies. Finally, we detect a drop or truncation of the abundance in the inner regions of 27 galaxies in the sample; this is only visible for the most massive galaxies, We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) via grant AYA2012-31935, and from the “Junta de Andalucía” local government through the FQM-108 project. We also acknowledge support to the ConaCyt funding program 180125. Y.A. acknowledges fi- nantial support from the Ramón y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461). Y.A. and A.I.D. acknowledge support from the project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P from the Spanish MINECO, as well as the “Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy” (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7- PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701). Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. LG acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. R.M.G.D. acknowledges support from the Spanish grant AYA2014-57490-P, and from the “Junta de Andalucía” P12-FQM2828 project. RAM thanks the Spanish program of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). IM and A.d.O. acknowledge support from the Spanish MINECO grant AYA2013-42227P. JMA acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph, P.I. V. Wild). Support for MM has been provided by DGICYT grant AYA2013-47742-C4-4-P. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramón y Cajal programme, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish MINECO. CJW acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Grant Integration 303912

M. Lyubenova et. al., In this paper, we describe how we use stellar dynamics information to constrain the shape of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) in a sample of 27 early-type galaxies from the CALIFA survey. We obtain dynamical and stellar mass-to-light ratios, ¿dyn and ¿*, over a homogenous aperture of 0.5 Re. We use the constraint ¿dyn¿¿* to test two IMF shapes within the framework of the extended MILES stellar population models. We rule out a single power-law IMF shape for 75 per cent of the galaxies in our sample. Conversely, we find that a double power-law IMF shape with a varying high-mass end slope is compatible (within 1¿) with 95 per cent of the galaxies. We also show that dynamical and stellar IMF mismatch factors give consistent results for the systematic variation of the IMF in these galaxies. © 2016, Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society., This Paper is based on data obtained by the CALIFA survey, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science under grant ICTS-2009-10, and the CAHA. IMN and JFB acknowledge funding from grant AYA2013-48226-C3-1-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and, together with and GvdV, from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions via the ITN DAGAL (grant 289313). CJW acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. Support for LG is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009 awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS), and CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. RGD acknowledges support from AyA2014-57490-P. JMA acknowledges support from the ERC Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild).

We use data from the Sydney-AAO Multi-Object Integral Field Spectrograph (SAMI) Galaxy Survey and the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey to investigate the spatially-resolved signatures of the environmental quenching of star formation in galaxies. Using dust-corrected measurements of the distribution of H$\alpha$ emission we measure the radial profiles of star formation in a sample of 201 star-forming galaxies covering three orders of magnitude in stellar mass (M$_{*}$; $10^{8.1}$-$10^{10.95}\, $M$_{\odot}$) and in $5^{th}$ nearest neighbour local environment density ($\Sigma_{5}$; $10^{-1.3}$-$10^{2.1}\,$Mpc$^{-2}$). We show that star formation rate gradients in galaxies are steeper in dense ($\log_{10}(\Sigma_{5}/$Mpc$^{2})>0.5$) environments by $0.58\pm 0.29\, dex\, $r$_{e}^{-1}$ in galaxies with stellar masses in the range $10^{10}1.0$). These lines of evidence strongly suggest that with increasing local environment density the star formation in galaxies is suppressed, and that this starts in their outskirts such that quenching occurs in an outside-in fashion in dense environments and is not instantaneous., Comment: 24 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The metallicity of a supernova progenitor, together with its mass, is one of the main parameters that can rule the progenitor's fate. We present the second study of nearby supernova (SN) host galaxies (0.005 10 dex) by targeted searches. We neither found evidence that the metallicity at the SN location differs from the average metallicity at the galactocentric distance of the SNe. By extending our SN sample with published metallicities at the SN location, we are able to study the metallicity distributions for all SN subtypes split into SN discovered in targeted and untargeted searches. We confirm a bias toward higher host masses and metallicities in the targeted searches. By combining data from targeted and untargeted searches, we found a sequence from higher to lower local metallicity: SN Ia, Ic, and II show the highest metallicity, which is significantly higher than those of SN Ib, IIb, and Ic-BL. Our results support the scenario according to which SN Ib result from binary progenitors. Additionally, at least part of the SN Ic are the result of single massive stars that were stripped of their outer layers by metallicity-driven winds. We studied several proxies of the local metallicity that are frequently used in the literature and found that the total host metallicity allows estimating the metallicity at the SN location with an accuracy better than 0.08 dex and very small bias. In addition, weak AGNs that cannot be seen in the total spectrum may weakly bias (by 0.04 dex) the metallicity estimate that is derived from the galaxy-integrated spectrum. © ESO, 2016., This work was partly funded by FCT with the research grant PTDC/CTE-AST/112582/2009. Support for L.G. is partially provided by FCT, by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566, and from the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS). V.S. acknowledges financial support from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) under program Ciencia 2008. C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912.

González Delgado, Rosa M. et. al., The spatially resolved stellar population content of today's galaxies holds important information for understanding the different processes that contribute to the star formation and mass assembly histories of galaxies. The aim of this paper is to characterize the radial structure of the star formation rate (SFR) in galaxies in the nearby Universe as represented by a uniquely rich and diverse data set drawn from the CALIFA survey. The sample under study contains 416 galaxies observed with integral field spectroscopy, covering a wide range of Hubble types and stellar masses ranging from M* similar to 10(9) to 7 x 10(11) M-circle dot. Spectral synthesis techniques are applied to the datacubes to derive 2D maps and radial profiles of the intensity of the star formation rate in the recent past (Sigma(SFR)), as well as related properties, such as the local specific star formation rate (sSFR), defined as the ratio between Sigma(SFR) and the stellar mass surface density (mu*). To emphasize the behavior of these properties for galaxies that are on and off the main sequence of star formation (MSSF), we stack the individual radial profiles in seven bins of galaxy morphology ( E, S0, Sa, Sb, Sbc, Sc, and Sd), and several stellar masses. Our main results are: ( a) the intensity of the star formation rate shows declining profiles that exhibit very small differences between spirals with values at R = 1 half light radius (HLR) within a factor two of Sigma(SFR) similar to 20 M-circle dot Gyr(-1) pc(-2). The dispersion in the Sigma(SFR)(R) profiles is significantly smaller in late type spirals (Sbc, Sc, Sd). This confirms that the MSSF is a sequence of galaxies with nearly constant Sigma(SFR). (b) sSFR values scale with Hubble type and increase radially outward with a steeper slope in the inner 1 HLR. This behavior suggests that galaxies are quenched inside-out and that this process is faster in the central, bulge-dominated part than in the disks. (c) As a whole and at all radii, E and S0 are off the MSSF with SFR much smaller than spirals of the same mass. (d) Applying the volume corrections for the CALIFA sample, we obtain a density of star formation in the local Universe of rho SFR = (0.0105 +/- 0.0008) M-circle dot yr(-1) Mpc(-3), in agreement with independent estimates. Most of the star formation is occurring in the disks of spirals. (e) The volume-averaged birthrate parameter, which measures the current SFR with respect to its lifetime average, b' = 0.39 +/- 0.03, suggests that the present day Universe is forming stars a about one-third of its past average rate. E, S0, and the bulge of early type spirals (Sa, Sb) contribute little to the recent SFR of the Universe, which is dominated by the disks of Sbc, Sc, and Sd spirals. (f) There is a tight relation between Sigma(SFR) and mu*, defining a local MSSF relation with a logarithmic slope of 0.8, similar to the global MSSF relation between SFR and M*. This suggests that local processes are important in determining the star formation in disks, probably through a density dependence of the SFR law. The scatter in the local MSSF is driven by morphology-related off sets, with Sigma(SFR)/mu* (the local sSFR) increasing from early to late type galaxies, indicating that the shut down of the star formation is more related to global processes, such as the formation of a spheroidal component., Support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, through projects AYA2014-57490-P, AYA2010-15081, and Junta de Andalucia FQ1580, AYA2010-22111-C03-03, AYA2010-10904E, AYA2013-42227P, RyC-2011-09461, AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, EU SELGIFS exchange program FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701, and CONACYT-125180 and DGAPA-IA100815. We also thank the Viabilidad, Diseno, Acceso y Mejora funding program, ICTS-2009-10, for funding the data acquisition of this project.

The search of extragalactic regions with conspicuous presence of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars outside the Local Group is challenging task owing to the difficulty in detecting their faint spectral features. In this exploratory work, we develop a methodology to perform an automated search of WR signatures through a pixel-by-pixel analysis of integral field spectroscopy (IFS) data belonging to the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey, CALIFA. This procedure has been applied to a sample of nearby galaxies spanning a wide range of physical, morphological, and environmental properties. This technique allowed us to build the first catalogue of regions rich in WR stars with spatially resolved information, and enabled us to study the properties of these complexes in a two-dimensional (2D) context. The detection technique is based on the identification of the blue WR bump (around He iiλ4686 Å, mainly associated with nitrogen-rich WR stars; WN) and the red WR bump (around C ivλ5808 Å, mainly associated with carbon-rich WR stars; WC) using a pixel-by-pixel analysis that maximizes the number of independent regions within a given galaxy. We identified 44 WR-rich regions with blue bumps distributed in 25 out of a total of 558 galaxies. The red WR bump was identified only in 5 of those regions. Most of the WR regions are located within one effective radius from the galaxy centre, and around one-third are located within ~1 kpc or less from the centre. We found that the majority of the galaxies hosting WR populations in our sample are involved in some kind of interaction process. Half of the host galaxies share some properties with gamma-ray burst (GRB) hosts where WR stars, such as potential candidates to the progenitors of GRBs, are found. We also compared the WR properties derived from the CALIFA data with stellar population synthesis models, and confirm that simple star models are generally not able to reproduce the observations. We conclude that other effects, such as binary star channel (which could extend theWR phase up to 10 Myr), fast rotation, or other physical processes that cause the loss of observed Lyman continuum photons, very likely affect the derived WR properties, and hence should be considered when modelling the evolution of massive stars. © 2016 ESO., D.M.C., A.I.D., and F.F.R.O. would like to acknowledge financial support provided by the project AYA2010-21887-C04-03 (former Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, Spain) as well as the exchange programme >Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy> (SELGIFS, FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701), funded by the EU through the IRSES scheme. A.M.I. acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). R.G.D. acknowledges support through the project AYA2014-57490-P. C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912

This paper describes the Third Public Data Release (DR3) of the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. Science-grade quality data for 667 galaxies are made public, including the 200 galaxies of the Second Public Data Release (DR2). Data were obtained with the integral-field spectrograph PMAS/PPak mounted on the 3.5m telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory. Three different spectral setups are available, i) a low-resolution V500 setup covering the wavelength range 3749-7500 AA (4240-7140 AA unvignetted) with a spectral resolution of 6.0 AA (FWHM), for 646 galaxies, ii) a medium-resolution V1200 setup covering the wavelength range 3650-4840 AA (3650-4620 AA unvignetted) with a spectral resolution of 2.3 AA (FWHM), for 484 galaxies, and iii) the combination of the cubes from both setups (called COMBO), with a spectral resolution of 6.0 AA and a wavelength range between 3700-7500 AA (3700-7140 AA unvignetted), for 446 galaxies. The Main Sample, selected and observed according to the CALIFA survey strategy covers a redshift range between 0.005 and 0.03, spans the color-magnitude diagram and probes a wide range of stellar mass, ionization conditions, and morphological types. The Extension Sample covers several types of galaxies that are rare in the overall galaxy population and therefore not numerous or absent in the CALIFA Main Sample. All the cubes in the data release were processed using the latest pipeline, which includes improved versions of the calibration frames and an even further improved im- age reconstruction quality. In total, the third data release contains 1576 datacubes, including ~1.5 million independent spectra. It is available at http://califa.caha.es/DR3., CALIFA is the first legacy survey being performed at Calar Alto. The CALIFA collaboration would like to thank the IAA-CSIC and MPIAMPG as major partners of the observatory, and CAHA itself, for the unique access to telescope time and support in manpower and infrastructures. The CALIFA collaboration thanks also the CAHA staff for the dedication to this project. We thank the anonymous referee for his/her help in improving this article. SFS thanks the director of CEFCA, M. Moles, for his sincere support to this project. SFS thanks the CONACYT-125180 and DGAPA-IA100815 projects for providing him support in this study. RGB, RGD, and EP are supported by grants AYA2014-57490-P and JA-FQM-2828. SZ is supported by the EU Marie Curie Integration Grant “SteMaGE” Nr. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466 (Call Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2012 CIG). J. F-B. from grant AYA2013-48226-C3-1-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), as well as from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement number 289313 B.G-L- acknowledges financial support by the Spanish MINECO under grants AYA2013- 41656-P and AYA2015-68217-P Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. L.G. also acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. and AYA2013-42227-P from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucía. AG acknowledges support from the FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n. 267251 (AstroFIt). RAM was funded by the Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). JMA acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild). IM and AdO acknowledge the support by the projects AYA2010-15196 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucía. AMI acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). MM acknowledges financial support from AYA2010-21887-C04-02 from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramón y Cajal program, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). CJW acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. VW acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDMorph P.I. V. Wild) and European Career Re-integration Grant (Phiz-Ev P.I. V. Wild). YA acknowledges financial support from the Ramón y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461) and project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, both managed by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, as well as the ‘Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy’ (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7-PEOPLE-2013- IRSES-612701) within the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions scheme. ROM acknowledges support from CAPES (Brazil) through a PDJ fellowship from project 88881.030413/2013-01, program CSF-PVE., This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from EDP Sciences via http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201628661

International audience; Aims:By combining data from the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey (VVDS) with the Spitzer Wide-area InfraRed Extragalactic survey (SWIRE), we have built the currently largest spectroscopic sample of high redshift galaxies selected in the rest-frame near-infrared. We have obtained 2040 spectroscopic redshifts of galaxies with (m3.6)_AB < 21.5 at 3.6 mu m, and 1255 spectroscopic redshifts of galaxies with (m4.5)_AB < 21. These allow us to investigate the clustering evolution of galaxies selected via their rest-frame near-infrared luminosity in the redshift range 0.2 < z < 2.1. Methods: We use the projected two-point correlation function w_p(r_p) to study the three dimensional clustering properties of galaxies detected at 3.6 mu m and 4.5 mu m with the InfraRed Array Camera (IRAC) in the SWIRE survey with measured spectroscopic redshifts from the first epoch VVDS. We compare these properties to those of a larger sample of 16672 SWIRE galaxies for which we have accurate photometric redshifts in the same field. Results: We find that in the 3.6 mu m and 4.5 mu m flux limited samples, the apparent correlation length does not change from redshift ~2 to the present. The measured correlation lengths have a mean value of r0 ~= 3.9±0.5 h-1 Mpc for the galaxies selected at 3.6 mu m and a mean value of r0 ~= 4.4±0.5 h-1 Mpc for the galaxies selected at 4.5 mu m, across the whole redshift range explored. These values are larger than those typicaly found for I-band selected galaxies at I_AB < 24, for which r0 varies from 2.69 h-1 Mpc to 3.63 h-1 Mpc between z = 0.5 to z = 2.1. We find that the difference in correlation length between I-band and 3.6-4.5 mum selected samples decreases with increasing redshift, becoming comparable at z ~= 1.5. We interpret this as evidence that galaxies with older stellar populations and galaxies actively forming stars reside in comparably over-dense environments at epochs earlier than z ~= 1.5, supporting the recently reported flattening of the color-density relation at high redshift. The increasing difference in correlation length with cosmic time observed between rest-frame UV-optical and near-infrared selected samples could then be an indication that star formation is gradually shifting to lower density regions with decreasing redshift, while the older, passively evolving galaxies remain in the most over-dense peaks.

In this paper we discuss the mix of star-forming and passive galaxies up to z~2, based on the first epoch VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey (VVDS) data.In agreement with previous works we find that the galaxy rest-frame color distribution follows a bimodal distribution at z, 15 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, revised version accepted for publication on A&A

Based on a combined analysis of SDSS imaging and CALIFA integral field spectroscopy data, we report on the detection of faint (24, This paper is based on data from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area Survey, CALIFA (http://califa.caha.es), funded by the Spanish Ministery of Science under grant ICTS-2009-10, and the Centro Astronomico Hispano-Aleman. J.M.G. acknowledges support by Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Fellowship SFRH/BPD/66958/2009 and POPH/FSE (EC) by FEDER funding through the program Programa Operacional de Factores de Competitividade (COMPETE). P.P. is supported by FCT through the Investigador FCT Contract No. IF/01220/2013 and POPH/FSE (EC) by FEDER funding through the program COMPETE. J.M.G. and P.P. acknowledge support by FCT under project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 (Ref. PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012), funded by FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) and FEDER (COMPETE) and the exchange programme >Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy> (SELGIFS, FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701), funded by the EU through the IRSES scheme. S.F.S. acknowledges support from CONACyT-180125 and PAPIIT-IA100815 grants. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. L.G. acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. I.M. acknowledges financial support by the Junta de Andalucia through project TIC114, and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through projects AYA2010-15169 and AYA2013-42227-P. R.A. Marino is funded by the Spanish program of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). This research made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Astronomy and Astrophysics 576 (2015): A102 reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics, © ESO, Context. The bar pattern speed (Ωb) is defined as the rotational frequency of the bar, and it determines the bar dynamics. Several methods have been proposed for measuring Ωb. The non-parametric method proposed by Tremaine & Weinberg (1984, ApJ, 282, L5; TW) and based on stellar kinematics is the most accurate. This method has been applied so far to 17 galaxies, most of them SB0 and SBa types. Aims. We have applied the TW method to a new sample of 15 strong and bright barred galaxies, spanning a wide range of morphological types from SB0 to SBbc. Combining our analysis with previous studies, we investigate 32 barred galaxies with their pattern speed measured by the TW method. The resulting total sample of barred galaxies allows us to study the dependence of Ωb on galaxy properties, such as the Hubble type. Methods. We measured Ωb using the TW method on the stellar velocity maps provided by the integral-field spectroscopy data from the CALIFA survey. Integral-field data solve the problems that long-slit data present when applying the TW method, resulting in the determination of more accurate Ωb. In addition, we have also derived the ratio R of the corotation radius to the bar length of the galaxies. According to this parameter, bars can be classified as fast (R < 1.4) and slow (R > 1.4). Results. For all the galaxies, R is compatible within the errors with fast bars. We cannot rule out (at 95% level) the fast bar solution for any galaxy. We have not observed any significant trend between R and the galaxy morphological type. Conclusions. Our results indicate that independent of the Hubble type, bars have been formed and then evolve as fast rotators. This observational result will constrain the scenarios of formation and evolution of bars proposed by numerical simulations, J.A.L.A. have been partly funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science, project AYA2013-43188-P. J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild). R. A. Marino is funded by the Spanish program of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). I.M. acknowledges the financial support from the Spanish grant AYA2010-15169 and from the Junta de Andalucia through TIC-114 and the Excellence Project P08-TIC-03531. R.G.D. and E.P. have been partly funded by Spanish grant AYA2010-1581. J.I.P. acknowledges financial support from MINECO AYA2010-21887-C04-01 grant and from Junta de Andalucía Excellence Project PEX2011-FQM7058. S.F.S. acknowledges support from CONACyT grant 180125. This study makes uses of the data provided by the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey (http://www.califa.caha.es). Based on observations collected at the Centro Astronómico Hispano Alemán (CAHA) at Calar Alto, operated jointly by the Max-PlanckInstitut fur Astronomie and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC). CALIFA is the first legacy survey being performed at Calar Alto.The CALIFA collaboration would like to thank the IAA-CSIC and MPIA-MPG as major partners of the observatory, and CAHA itself, for the unique access to telescope time and support in manpower and infrastructures. The CALIFA collaboration thanks also the CAHA staff for the dedication to this project. R.G.D., E.P., R.G.B., and C.C.F. wants to thanks finalcial support from AYA2010-15081. J.F.-B. acknowledgessupport from grant AYA2013-48226-C3-1-P from MINECO

We use optical integral-field spectroscopic (IFS) data from 103 nearby galaxies at different stages of the merging event, from close pairs to merger remnants provided by the CALIFA survey, to study the impact of the interaction in the specific star formation and oxygen abundance on different galactic scales. To disentangle the effect of the interaction and merger from internal processes, we compared our results with a control sample of 80 non-interacting galaxies. We confirm the moderate enhancement (x 2-3 times) of specific star formation for interacting galaxies in central regions as reported by previous studies; however, the specific star formation is comparable when observed in extended regions. We find that control and interacting star-forming galaxies have similar oxygen abundances in their central regions, when normalized to their stellar masses. Oxygen abundances of these interacting galaxies seem to decrease compared to the control objects at the large aperture sizes measured in effective radius. Although the enhancement in central star formation and lower metallicities for interacting galaxies have been attributed to tidally induced inflows, our results suggest that other processes such as stellar feedback can contribute to the metal enrichment in interacting galaxies.

CALIFA is the first legacy survey being performed at Calar Alto. The CALIFA collaboration would like to thank the IAA-CSIC and MPIA-MPG as major partners of the observatory, and CAHA itself, for the unique access to telescope time and support in manpower and infrastructures. The CALIFA collaboration thanks also the CAHA staff for the dedication to this project. R.G.B., R.G.D., and E.P. are supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under grant AYA2010-15081. S.Z. is supported by the EU Marie Curie Integration Grant "SteMaGE" Nr. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466 (Call Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2012 CIG). J.F.B. acknowledges support from grants AYA2010-21322-C03-02 and AIB-2010-DE-00227 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), as well as from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement number 289313. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, M.A.S.L.G. also acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. A.G. acknowledges support from the FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n. 267251 (AstroFIt). J.M.G. acknowledges support from the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Fellowship SFRH/BPD/66958/2009 from FCT (Portugal) and research grant PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012. RAM was funded by the Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild). I.M., J.M. and A.d.O. acknowledge the support by the projects AYA2010-15196 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucia. AMI acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). M.M. acknowledges financial support from AYA2010-21887-C04-02 from the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. P.P. is supported by an FCT Investigador 2013 Contract, funded by FCT/MCTES (Portugal) and POPH/FSE (EC). P.P. acknowledges support by FCT under project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 (Reference FCT PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012), funded by FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) and FEDER (COMPETE). T.R.L. thanks the support of the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte by means of the FPU fellowship. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramon y Cajal program, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. V.W. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDMorph P.I. V. Wild) and European Career Re-integration Grant (Phiz-Ev P.I.V. Wild). Y.A. acknowledges financial support from the Ramon y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461) and project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, both managed by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, as well as the "Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy" (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701) within the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions scheme. We thank the referee David Wilman for very useful comments that improved the presentation of the paper., This paper describes the Second Public Data Release (DR2) of the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. The data for 200 objects are made public, including the 100 galaxies of the First Public Data Release (DR1). Data were obtained with the integral-field spectrograph PMAS/PPak mounted on the 3.5 m telescope at the Calar Alto observatory. Two different spectral setups are available for each galaxy, (i) a lowresolution V500 setup covering the wavelength range 3745–7500 Å with a spectral resolution of 6.0 Å (FWHM); and (ii) a medium-resolution V1200 setup covering the wavelength range 3650–4840 Å with a spectral resolution of 2.3 Å (FWHM). The sample covers a redshift range between 0.005 and 0.03, with a wide range of properties in the color–magnitude diagram, stellar mass, ionization conditions, and morphological types. All the cubes in the data release were reduced with the latest pipeline, which includes improved spectrophotometric calibration, spatial registration, and spatial resolution. The spectrophotometric calibration is better than 6% and the median spatial resolution is 200 : 4. In total, the second data release contains over 1.5 million spectra., Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government AYA2010-15081 AYA2010-15196, European Union (EU) PCIG12-GA-2012-326466, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) AYA2010-21322-C03-02 AIB-2010-DE-00227, FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA 289313, Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative IC12009, Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 3140566, Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) from FCT (Portugal) SFRH/BPD/66958/2009, Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI), European Research Council (ERC), Junta de Andalucia TIC 114 PO08-TIC-3531, French National Research Agency (ANR) ANR-12-BS05-0016-02, Spanish Government AYA2010-21887-C04-02, FCT Investigador Contract - FCT/MCTES (Portugal), European Commission Joint Research Centre European Social Fund (ESF), FCT - FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 FCT PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012, European Union (EU), Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte by FPU, Ramon y Cajal program from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) ATA2010-21322-C03-02, European Union (EU) 303912, European Career Re-integration Grant, Spanish Government RyC-2011-09461 AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, European Union (EU) FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701, PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012, Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ST/K000985/1

We carry out a direct search for bar-like non-circular flows in intermediate-inclination, gas-rich disk galaxies with a range of morphological types and photometric bar classifications from the first data release (DR1) of the CALIFA survey. We use the DiskFit algorithm to apply rotation only and bisymmetric flow models to H$\alpha$ velocity fields for 49/100 CALIFA DR1 systems that meet our selection criteria. We find satisfactory fits for a final sample of 37 systems. DiskFit is sensitive to the radial or tangential components of a bar-like flow with amplitudes greater than $15\,$km$\,$s$^{-1}$ across at least two independent radial bins in the fit, or ~2.25 kpc at the characteristic final sample distance of ~75 Mpc. The velocity fields of 25/37 $(67.6^{+6.6}_{-8.5}\%)$ galaxies are best characterized by pure rotation, although only 17/25 $(68.0^{+7.7}_{-10.4}\%)$ of them have sufficient H$\alpha$ emission near the galaxy centre to afford a search for non-circular flows. We detect non-circular flows in the remaining 12/37 $(32.4^{+8.5}_{-6.6}\%)$ galaxies. We conclude that the non-circular flows detected in 11/12 $(91.7^{+2.8}_{-14.9}\%)$ systems stem from bars. Galaxies with intermediate (AB) bars are largely undetected, and our detection thresholds therefore represent upper limits to the amplitude of the non-circular flows therein. We find 2/23 $(8.7^{+9.6}_{-2.9}\%)$ galaxies that show non-circular motions consistent with a bar-like flow, yet no photometric bar is evident. This suggests that in ~10% of galaxies either the existence of a bar may be missed completely in photometry or other processes may drive bar-like flows and thus secular galaxy evolution., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (16 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables). Online Only Appendices: http://tinyurl.com/pav3cdx. High Resolution Figures: http://tinyurl.com/pr824uu

Astronomy and Astrophysics 584 (2015): A87 reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics, © ESO, The star formation rate (SFR) is one of the main parameters used to analyze the evolution of galaxies through time. The need for recovering the light reprocessed by dust commonly requires the use of low spatial resolution far-infrared data. Recombination line luminosities provide an alternative, although uncertain dust-extinction corrections based on narrowband imaging or long-slit spectroscopy have traditionally posed a limit to their applicability. Integral field spectroscopy (IFS) is clearly the way to overcome this kind of limitation. Aims. We obtain integrated Hα, ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR)-based SFR measurements for 272 galaxies from the CALIFA survey at 0.005, The authors also thank the support from the Plan Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo funding programs, AYA2012-30717 and AyA2013-46724P, of Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO). P.G.P.-G. acknowledges support from the AYA2012-30717 and AYA2012-31277. J.I.P. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MINECO under grant AYA2010-21887-C04-01 and from Junta de Andalucía Excellence Project PEX2011-FQM7058. R.A.M. is funded by the Spanish program of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). M.A.P.T. acknowledges support from the Spanish MINECO through grant AYA2012-38491-C02-02. A.d.O. acknowledge financial support from the Spanish grant AYA2013-42227-P. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. L.G. acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. J.M.G. acknowledges support from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Fellowship SFRH/BPD/66958/2009 from FCT (Portugal) and POPH/FSE (EC) by FEDER funding through the program Programa Operacional de Factores de competitividade (COMPETE). J.M.G. also acknowledges support by FCT under project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 (Reference FCT PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012), funded by FCTMEC (PIDDAC) and FEDER (COMPETE)

Astronomy and Astrophysics 581 (2015): A103 reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics, © ESO, Various different physical processes contribute to the star formation and stellar mass assembly histories of galaxies. One important approach to understanding the significance of these different processes on galaxy evolution is the study of the stellar population content of today's galaxies in a spatially resolved manner. The aim of this paper is to characterize in detail the radial structure of stellar population properties of galaxies in the nearby universe, based on a uniquely large galaxy sample, considering the quality and coverage of the data. The sample under study was drawn from the CALIFA survey and contains 300 galaxies observed with integral field spectroscopy. These cover a wide range of Hubble types, from spheroids to spiral galaxies, while stellar masses range from M ͙ ∼ 109 to 7 × 1011 M⊙. We apply the fossil record method based on spectral synthesis techniques to recover the following physical properties for each spatial resolution element in our target galaxies: the stellar mass surface density (μ ͙), stellar extinction (AV), light-weighted and mass-weighted ages (˂log age˃L, ˂log age˃M), and mass-weighted metallicity (˂log Z˃M). To study mean trends with overall galaxy properties, the individual radial profiles are stacked in seven bins of galaxy morphology (E, S0, Sa, Sb, Sbc, Sc, and Sd). We confirm that more massive galaxies are more compact, older, more metal rich, and less reddened by dust. Additionally, we find that these trends are preserved spatially with the radial distance to the nucleus. Deviations from these relations appear correlated with Hubble type: earlier types are more compact, older, and more metal rich for a given M, which is evidence that quenching is related to morphology, but not driven by mass. Negative gradients of ˂log age˃L are consistent with an inside-out growth of galaxies, with the largest ˂log age˃ L gradients in Sb-Sbc galaxies. Further, the mean stellar ages of disks and bulges are correlated and with disks covering a wider range of ages, and late-type spirals hosting younger disks. However, age gradients are only mildly negative or flat beyond R ∼ 2 HLR (half light radius), indicating that star formation is more uniformly distributed or that stellar migration is important at these distances. The gradients in stellar mass surface density depend mostly on stellar mass, in the sense that more massive galaxies are more centrally concentrated. Whatever sets the concentration indices of galaxies obviously depends less on quenching/morphology than on the depth of the potential well. There is a secondary correlation in the sense that at the same M early-type galaxies have steeper gradients. The μ gradients outside 1 HLR show no dependence on Hubble type. We find mildly negative ˂log Z˃M gradients, which are shallower than predicted from models of galaxy evolution in isolation. In general, metallicity gradients depend on stellar mass, and less on morphology, hinting that metallicity is affected by both - the depth of the potential well and morphology/quenching. Thus, the largest ˂log Z˃M gradients occur in Milky Way-like Sb-Sbc galaxies, and are similar to those measured above the Galactic disk. Sc spirals show flatter ˂log Z˃M gradients, possibly indicating a larger contribution from secular evolution in disks. The galaxies from the sample have decreasing-outward stellar extinction; all spirals show similar radial profiles, independent from the stellar mass, but redder than E and S0. Overall, we conclude that quenching processes act in manners that are independent of mass, while metallicity and galaxy structure are influenced by mass-dependent processes, Support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, through projects AYA2010-15081 (PI R.G.D.), and Junta de Andalucía FQ1580 (PI R.G.D.), AYA2010-22111-C03-03, and AYA2010-10904E (S.F.S.). We also thank the Viabilidad, Diseño, Acceso y Mejora funding program, ICTS-2009-10, for funding the data acquisition of this project. R.C.F. thanks the hospitality of the IAA and the support of CAPES and CNPq. R.G.D. acknowledges the support of CNPq (Brazil) through Programa Ciencia sem Fronteiras (401452/2012-3). A.G. acknowledges support from EU FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n.267251 (AstroFIt) and from the EU Marie Curie Integration Grant “SteMaGE” Nr. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466. C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. E.P. acknowledges support from the Guillermo Haro program at INAOE. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. L.G. acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. J.I.P. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MINECO under grant AYA2010-21887- C04-01 and from Junta de Andalucía Excellence Project PEX2011-FQM7058. I.M., J.M. and A.d.O. acknowledge support from the project AYA2013-42227-P. RAM is funded by the Spanish program of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild)

(Abridged) We study the nuclear star clusters in spiral galaxies of various Hubble types using spectra obtained with STIS on-board HST. We observed the nuclear clusters in 40 galaxies, selected from two previous HST/WFPC2 imaging surveys. The spectra provide a better separation of cluster light from underlying galaxy light than is possible with ground-based spectra. To infer the star formation history, metallicity and dust extinction, we fit weighted superpositions of single-age stellar population templates to the spectra. The luminosity-weighted age ranges from 10 Myrs to 10 Gyrs. The stellar populations of NCs are generally best fit as a mixture of populations of different ages. This indicates that NCs did not form in a single event, but instead they had additional star formation long after the oldest stars formed. On average, the sample clusters in late-type spirals have a younger luminosity-weighted mean age than those in early-type spirals (log(age/yr) = 8.37+/-0.25 vs. 9.23+/-0.21). The average cluster masses are smaller in late-type spirals than in early-type spirals (log(M/Msun) = 6.25+/-0.21 vs. 7.63+/-0.24), and exceed the masses typical of globular clusters. The cluster mass correlates strongly with both the Hubble type of the host galaxy and the luminosity of its bulge. The latter correlation has the same slope as the well-known correlation between supermassive black hole mass and bulge luminosity. The properties of both nuclear clusters and black holes are therefore intimately connected to the properties of the host galaxy.

In the last decade star clusters have been found in the centers of spiral galaxies across all Hubble types. We here present a spectroscopic study of the exceptionally bright (10^6 - 10^8 Lsun) but compact (Re ~ 5 pc) nuclear star clusters in very late type spirals with UVES at the VLT. We find the velocity dispersions of the nine clusters in our sample to range from 13 to 34 km/s. Using photometric data from the HST/WFPC2 and spherically symmetric dynamical models we determine masses between 8*10^5 and 6*10^7 Msun. The mass to light ratios range from 0.2 to 1.5 in the I band. This indicates a young mean age for most clusters, in agreement with previous studies. Given their high masses and small sizes we find that nuclear clusters are among the objects with the highest mean surface density known (up to 10^5 Msun pc^-2). From their dynamical properties we infer that, rather than small bulges, the closest structural kin of nuclear clusters appear to be massive compact star clusters. This includes such different objects as globular clusters, "super star clusters", ultra compact dwarf galaxies and the nuclei of dwarf elliptical galaxies. It is a challenge to explain why, despite the wildly different current environments, all different types of massive star clusters share very similar and structural properties. A possible explanation links UCDs and massive globular clusters to nuclear star clusters through stripping of nucleated dwarf galaxies in a merger event. The extreme properties of this type of clusters would then be a consequence of their location in the centers of their respective host galaxies., 26 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJ

We use spatially and temporally resolved maps of stellar population properties of 300 galaxies from the CALIFA integral field survey to investigate how the stellar metallicity (Z*) relates to the total stellar mass (M*) and the local mass surface density ($\mu$*) in both spheroidal and disk dominated galaxies. The galaxies are shown to follow a clear stellar mass-metallicity relation (MZR) over the whole 10$^9$ to 10$^{12}$ M$_{\odot}$ range. This relation is steeper than the one derived from nebular abundances, which is similar to the flatter stellar MZR derived when we consider only young stars. We also find a strong relation between the local values of $\mu$* and Z* (the $\mu$ZR), betraying the influence of local factors in determining Z*. This shows that both local ($\mu$*-driven) and global (M*-driven) processes are important in determining the metallicity in galaxies. We find that the overall balance between local and global effects varies with the location within a galaxy. In disks, $\mu$* regulates Z*, producing a strong $\mu$ZR whose amplitude is modulated by M*. In spheroids it is M* who dominates the physics of star formation and chemical enrichment, with $\mu$* playing a minor, secondary role. These findings agree with our previous analysis of the star formation histories of CALIFA galaxies, which showed that mean stellar ages are mainly governed by surface density in galaxy disks and by total mass in spheroids., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL

Within the central 10pc of our Galaxy lies a dense nuclear star cluster (NSC), and similar NSCs are found in most nearby galaxies. Studying the structure and kinematics of NSCs reveals the history of mass accretion of galaxy nuclei. Because the Milky Way (MW) NSC is at a distance of only 8kpc, we can spatially resolve the MWNSC on sub-pc scales. This makes the MWNSC a reference object for understanding the formation of all NSCs. We have used the NIR long-slit spectrograph ISAAC (VLT) in a drift-scan to construct an integral-field spectroscopic map of the central 9.5 x 8pc of our Galaxy. We use this data set to extract stellar kinematics both of individual stars and from the unresolved integrated light spectrum. We present a velocity and dispersion map from the integrated light and model these kinematics using kinemetry and axisymmetric Jeans models. We also measure CO bandhead strengths of 1,375 spectra from individual stars. We find kinematic complexity in the NSCs radial velocity map including a misalignment of the kinematic position angle by 9 degree counterclockwise relative to the Galactic plane, and indications for a rotating substructure perpendicular to the Galactic plane at a radius of 20" or 0.8pc. We determine the mass of the NSC within r = 4.2pc to 1.4 x 10^7 Msun. We also show that our kinematic data results in a significant underestimation of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass. The kinematic substructure and position angle misalignment may hint at distinct accretion events. This indicates that the MWNSC grew at least partly by the mergers of massive star clusters. Compared to other NSCs, the MWNSC is on the compact side of the r_eff - M_NSC relation. The underestimation of the SMBH mass might be caused by the kinematic misalignment and a stellar population gradient. But it is also possible that there is a bias in SMBH mass measurements obtained with integrated light., 20 pages, 19 Figures, Accepted for publication in A&A

Astronomy and Astrophysics 561 (2014): A129 reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics, Context. Over the past decade, 3D optical spectroscopy has become the preferred tool for understanding the properties of galaxies and is now increasingly used to carry out galaxy surveys. Low redshift surveys include SAURON, DiskMass, ATLAS3D, PINGS, and VENGA. At redshifts above 0.7, surveys such as MASSIV, SINS, GLACE, and IMAGES have targeted the most luminous galaxies to study mainly their kinematic properties. The on-going CALIFA survey (z ~ 0.02) is the first of a series of upcoming integral field spectroscopy (IFS) surveys with large samples representative of the entire population of galaxies. Others include SAMI and MaNGA at lower redshift and the upcoming KMOS surveys at higher redshift. Given the importance of spatial scales in IFS surveys, the study of the effects of spatial resolution on the recovered parameters becomes important. Aims. We explore the capability of the CALIFA survey and a hypothetical higher redshift survey to reproduce the properties of a sample of objects observed with better spatial resolution at lower redshift. Methods. Using a sample of PINGS galaxies, we simulated observations at different redshifts. We then studied the behaviour of different parameters as the spatial resolution degrades with increasing redshift. Results. We show that at the CALIFA resolution, we are able to measure and map common observables in a galaxy study: the number and distribution of H ii regions (Hα flux structure), the gas metallicity (using the O3N2 method), the gas ionization properties (through the [N ii]/Hα and [O iii]/Hβ line ratios), and the age of the underlying stellar population (using the D4000 index). This supports the aim of the survey to characterise the observable properties of galaxies in the Local Universe. Our analysis of simulated IFS data cubes at higher redshifts highlights the importance of the projected spatial scale per spaxel as the most important figure of merit in the design of an integral field survey., Financial support from the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) under the programme Estancias Posdoctorales y Sabáticas al Extranjero para la Consolidación de Grupos de Investigación, 2010-2012. I.M. financial support from the Spanish MINECO grant AYA 2010-15169, and from Junta de Andalucía TIC114 and Proyecto de Excelencia P08-TIC-03531; J.F.-B. from the Ramón y Cajal Program, grants AYA2010-21322-C03-02 and AIB-2010-DE-00227 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), as well as from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement na 289313. Support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. Support from the Spanish Programa Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grant AYA2010-21322-C03-02. This work has been partially funded by the Spanish PNAYA, project AYA2010-21887 of the Spanish MINECO. R.A. Marino was also funded by the Spanish Programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI).