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Identifying the dominant ionizing sources in galaxies is essential for understanding their formation and evolution. Traditionally, spectra are classified based on their dominant ionizing source using strong emission lines and Baldwin, Phillips, \& Terlevich (BPT) diagrams. The ionizing source is traditionally determined by the emission line ratios using the BPT diagrams. Low-Ionization Nuclear Emission-line Regions (LINERs) are a class of ionizing mechanisms that is observationally identified but with a poorly understood origin, unlike the case of star forming regions and active galactic nuclei (AGN). LINERs, typically found in early-type galaxies, are often associated with low-luminosity AGN activity but may also be powered by aging stellar populations, particularly post-Asymptotic Giant Branch (p-AGB) stars. In this study, we employ a machine-learning-based encoder, Spender, to analyze the full MaNGA IFU spectra and identify key spectral features of LINERs. By examining the continuum and line emission of these spaxels, our approach aims to uncover hidden patterns and better understand the dominant ionizing sources. We show in this work that the neural network-based encoder was able identify LINER sources from the stellar continuum alone. The characteristics of the stellar population underlying LINER regions are consistent with evolved low mass stars implying that the source driving LINER emission is probably p-AGB stars rather than AGN activity.

To understand the origin of extended disks of low-surface brightness (LSB) galaxies, we studied in detail 4 such systems with large disks seen edge-on. Two of them are edge-on giant LSB galaxies (gLSBGs) recently identified by our team. The edge-on orientation of these systems boosts their surface brightnesses that provided an opportunity to characterize stellar populations spectroscopically and yielded the first such measurements for edge-on gLSBGs. We collected deep images of one galaxy using the 1.4-m Milankovi\'c Telescope which we combined with the archival Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam and DESI Legacy Surveys data available for the three other systems, and measured the structural parameters of the disks. We acquired deep long-slit spectra with the Russian 6-meter telescope and the 10-m Keck II telescope and estimated stellar population properties in the high- and low-surface brightness regions as well as the gas-phase metallicity distribution. The gas metallicity gradients are shallow to flat in the range between 0 and -0.03 dex per exponential disk scale length, which is consistent with the extrapolation of the gradient -- scale length relation for smaller disk galaxies. Our estimates of stellar velocity dispersion in the LSB disks as well as the relative thickness of the disks indicate the dynamical overheating. Our observations favor mergers as the essential stage in the formation scenario for massive LSB galaxies., Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Over the past 2 decades, wide-field photometric surveys in optical and infrared domains reached a nearly all-sky coverage thanks to numerous observational facilities operating in both hemispheres. However, subtle differences among exact realizations of Johnson and SDSS photometric systems require one to convert photometric measurements into the same system prior to analysis of composite datasets originating from multiple surveys. It turns out that the published photometric transformations lead to substantial biases when applied to integrated photometry of galaxies from the corresponding catalogs. Here we present photometric transformations based on piece-wise linear approximations of integrated photometry of galaxies in the optical surveys SDSS, DECaLS, BASS, MzLS, DES, DELVE, KiDS, VST ATLAS, and the near-infrared surveys UKIDSS, UHS, VHS, and VIKING. We validate our transformations by constructing k-corrected color-magnitude diagrams of non-active galaxies and measuring the position and tightness of the "red sequence". We also provide transformations for aperture magnitudes and show how they are affected by the image quality difference among the surveys. We present the implementation of the derived transformations in Python and IDL and also a web-based color transformation calculator for galaxies. By comparing DECaLS and DES, we identified systematic issues in DECaLS photometry for extended galaxies, which we attribute to the photometric software package used by DECaLS. As an application of our method, we compiled two multi-wavelength photometric catalogs for over 200,000 low- and intermediate-redshift galaxies originating from CfA FAST and Hectospec spectral archives., Comment: 24 pages, 21 figures, published in PASP. The "Color transformations" web service and the Python and IDL codes are available at https://colors.voxastro.org/

Ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) are spatially extended, low surface brightness stellar systems with regular elliptical-like morphology found in large numbers in galaxy clusters and groups. Studies of the internal dynamics and dark matter content of UDGs have been hampered by their low surface brightnesses. We identified a sample of low-mass early-type post-starburst galaxies, `future UDGs' in the Coma cluster still populated with young stars, which will passively evolve into UDGs in the next 5$-$10 Gyr. We collected deep observations for a sample of low-mass early-type galaxies in the Coma cluster using MMT Binospec, which includes present-day and future UDGs. We derived their dark matter content within a half-light radius (70$-$95%) and total dynamical masses ($M_{200}=5.5\cdot10^9-1.4\cdot10^{11} M_{\odot}$) assuming the Burkert density profile and assess how different proposed evolutionary channels affect dark and visible matter in UDGs. We also discuss observational methodology of present and future UDG studies., Comment: accepted to the proceedings of IAU Symposium 379 (Dynamical Masses of Local Group Galaxies), 6 pages, 3 figures

We present preliminary results from our spectroscopic survey of low-luminosity early-type galaxies in the Coma cluster conducted with the Binospec spectrograph at the 6.5~m MMT. From spatially-resolved profiles of internal kinematics and stellar population properties complemented with high-resolution images, we placed several low-luminosity dEs on the fundamental plane in the low-luminosity extension of the available literature data. We also discovered unusual kpc-sized kinematically-decoupled cores in several dwarf galaxies, which had been probably formed before these galaxies entered the cluster., Comment: accepted to the proceedings of IAU Symposium 379 (Dynamical Masses of Local Group Galaxies), 4 pages, 2 figures

We report the results of optical \'echelle spectroscopy with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) of the mass donor star BSDL\,923 in the neutron star (NS) high-mass X-ray binary XMMU\,J051342.6$-$672412 associated with the LMC supernova remnant (SNR) MCSNR\,J0513$-$6724. We found that BSDL\,923 is a B0.7\,III star with double peaked emission lines originating in a circumbinary disk-like structure. This classification and the presence of double-peaked emission lines imply that BSDL\,923 is a Be star. Modelling with the stellar atmosphere code {\sc fastwind} was used to derive the effective temperature $T_{\rm eff}=27\pm1$\,kK, surface gravity $\log g=3.22\pm0.10$, projected rotational velocity $v\sin i\approx100\pm45 \, \kms$, colour excess $E(B-V)=0.53\pm0.05$\,mag, and luminosity $\log(L_*/\lsun)=5.46\pm0.10$ of BSDL\,923, as well as to show that the surface of this star is polluted with $\alpha$-elements (O, Mg and Si) from the supernova ejecta. We found also that the NS is orbiting BSDL\,923 in an eccentric ($e=0.158\pm0.061$) orbit with the orbital period of $1.280\pm0.006$\,d and the semi-major axis of $17\pm3 \, \rsun$, and the radius of BSDL\,923 is $25\pm5 \,\rsun$. We speculate that the NS is embedded in the atmosphere of BSDL\,923 either because it was kicked at birth towards this star or because of inflation of BSDL\,923 caused by the energy input from the supernova blast wave. Using long-slit spectroscopy with SALT, we searched for possible signs of the SNR shell in the 2D spectrum, but did not find them. This lack of detection is consistent with the young age ($\approx4^{+2} _{-1}$\,kyr) of MCSNR\,J0513$-$6724, implying that it is still in the adiabatic (non-radiative) phase., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures and 6 tables. Accepted for publication by MNRAS

Stellar counter-rotation in disk galaxies directly relates to the complex phenomenon of the disk mass assembly believed to be driven by external processes, such as accretion and mergers. The detailed study of such systems makes it possible to reveal the source of external accretion and establish the details of this process. In this paper, we investigate the galaxy PGC 66551 (MaNGA ID 1-179561) which hosts two large-scale counter-rotating (CR) stellar disks identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey MaNGA data and then confirmed using deep follow-up spectroscopy with the 10m Southern African Large Telescope. We measured the properties of ionized gas and stellar populations of both CR disks in PGC 66551. We found that the CR disk is compact, contains young stars with subsolar metallicity, and has a stellar mass of $5\times10^{9}$ M$_\odot$ which amounts to $\approx$20% of the galaxy's total. Surprisingly, the main 8 Gyr old disk has a significantly lower metallicity of -0.8 dex than other CR galaxies. We developed a simple analytic model of the history of the metal enrichment, which we applied to PGC 66551 and constrained the parameters of the galactic outflow wind, and estimated the metallicity of the infalling gas that formed the CR disk to be -0.9 ... -0.5 dex. Our interpretation prefers a merger with a gas-rich satellite over cold accretion from a cosmic filament as a source of gas, which then formed the CR disk in PGC 66551., Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

We present re-processed flux calibrated spectra of 406 stars from the UVES-POP stellar library in the wavelength range 320-1025 nm, which can be used for stellar population synthesis. The spectra are provided in the two versions having spectral resolving power R=20,000 and R=80,000. Raw spectra from the ESO data archive were re-reduced using the latest version of the UVES data reduction pipeline with some additional algorithms that we developed. The most significant improvements in comparison with the original UVES-POP release are: (i) an updated Echelle order merging, which eliminates "ripples" present in the published spectra, (ii) a full telluric correction, (iii) merging of non-overlapping UVES spectral setups taking into account the global continuum shape, (iv) a spectrophotometric correction and absolute flux calibration, and (v) estimates of the interstellar extinction. For 364 stars from our sample, we computed atmospheric parameters $T_\mathrm{eff}$, surface gravity log $g$, metallicity [Fe/H], and $\alpha$-element enhancement [$\alpha$/Fe] by using a full spectrum fitting technique based on a grid of synthetic stellar atmospheres and a novel minimization algorithm. We also provide projected rotational velocity $v\sin i$ and radial velocity $v_{rad}$ estimates. The overall absolute flux uncertainty in the re-processed dataset is better than 2% with sub-% accuracy for about half of the stars. A comparison of the recalibrated UVES-POP spectra with other spectral libraries shows a very good agreement in flux; at the same time, $Gaia$ DR3 BP/RP spectra are often discrepant with our data, which we attribute to spectrophotometric calibration issues in $Gaia$ DR3., Comment: 26 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS

The process of galactic disc growing is still not fully understood. In the majority of disk galaxies the gas and stars are located in the same plane and rotate in the same direction. However, there are kinematically peculiar galaxies hosting two counter-rotating stellar discs. Their origin is believed to be the result of a past event of accretion of gas followed by star formation. By studying such galaxies we can learn how much material, when, and how, have fallen onto the progenitor galaxy. We identified a sample of 56 counter-rotating galaxies in the MaNGA IFU survey and initiated a follow-up observing campaign at the 6-m telescope (BTA) aiming to determine the stellar population properties of both stellar discs. Our preliminary results suggest the dichotomy of the sample of counter-rotating galaxies. We found that most massive galaxies have extended counter-rotating disks, whose contribution to luminosity is higher than in the less massive galaxies suggestive of different evolutionary paths., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure, 1 table; accepted for publication in the proceedings of the The Multifaceted Universe: Theory and Observations - 2022 (MUTO-2022) conference (published by PoS)

Rare giant low surface brightness galaxies (gLSBGs) act as a stress test for the current galaxy formation paradigm. To answer the question `How rare are they?' we estimate their volume density in the local Universe. A visual inspection of 120~sq.~deg. covered by deep Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam data was performed independently by four team members. We detected 42 giant disky systems (30 of them isolated) at $z\leq0.1$ with either $g$-band 27.7~mag~arcsec$^{-2}$ isophotal radius or four disc scalelengths $4h \geq 50$~kpc, 37 of which (including 25 isolated) had low central surface brightness ($\mu_{0,g}\ge 22.7$ mag~arcsec$^{-2}$). This corresponds to volume densities of 4.70$\times 10^{-5}$ Mpc$^{-3}$ for all galaxies with giant extended discs and 4.04$\times 10^{-5}$ Mpc$^{-3}$ for gLSBGs, which converts to $\sim $12,700 such galaxies in the entire sky out to $z<0.1$. These estimates agree well with the result of the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamical simulation. Giant disky galaxies represent the large-size end of the volume density distribution of normal-sized spirals, suggesting the non-exceptional nature of giant discs. We observe a high active galactic nucleus fraction among the newly found gLSBGs., Comment: 5 pages, 2 tables, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

Large time-domain surveys provide a unique opportunity to detect and explore variability of millions of sources on timescales from days to years. Broadband photometric variability can be used as the key selection criteria for weak type-I active galactic nuclei (AGN), when other "direct" confirmation criteria like X-ray or radio emission are unavailable. However, to detect variability of rather weak AGN powered by intermediate-mass black holes, typical sensitivity provided by existing light curve databases is insufficient. Here we present an algorithm for post-processing of light curves for sources with stochastic variability, retrieved from the The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) Forced Photometry service. Using our approach, we can filter out spurious data points related to data reduction artefacts and also eliminate long-term trends related to imperfect photometric calibration. We can now confidently detect the broad-band variability at the 1-3 $\%$ level which can potentially be used as a substitute for expensive X-ray follow-up observations., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; to appear in the proceedings of the XXXI Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference (published by ASP)

The origin of supermassive black holes (SMBH) in galaxy centers still remains uncertain. There are two possible ways of their formation - from massive ($10^5 - 10^6 M_{\odot}$) and low-mass ($100 M_{\odot}$) BH nuclei. The latter scenario should leave behind a large number of intermediate mass black holes (IMBH, $10^2 - 10^5 M_{\odot}$). The largest published sample of bona-fide IMBH-powered AGN contains 10 objects confirmed in X-ray. Here we present a new sample of 15 bona-fide IMBHs, obtained by confirming the optically selected IMBH candidates by the presence of radiation from the galactic nucleus in the X-ray range, which increases the number of confirmed IMBHs at the centers of galaxies by 2.5 times. In the same way, 99 black holes with masses of $2\cdot10^5 - 10^6 M_{\odot}$ were confirmed. The sources of X-ray data were publicly available catalogs, archives of data, and our own observations on XMM-Newton, Chandra and Swift. The Eddington coefficients for 30% of the objects from both samples turned out to be close to critical, from 0.5 to 1, which is an unusually high fraction. Also for the first time for light-weight SMBH the correlations between the luminosity in the [OIII] emission line or the broad component of the $H\alpha$ line and the luminosity in the X-ray range were plotted., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Astronomy at the epoch of multimessenger studies. Proceedings of the VAK-2021 conference, Aug 23-28, 2021 - Moscow, 2021

Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs; $M_{BH} <2*10^{5} M_{\odot}$) in galaxy centers are cruciel for painting a coherent picture of the formation and growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Using Big Data analysis, we identified 305 IMBH candidates for IMBH and 1623 candidates of `light-weight' SMBHs ($2 * 10^{5} M_{odot} < M_{BH} <10^{6} M_{\odot}$). For 35 host galaxies from this combined sample with the X-ray-confirmed active galactic nuclei (AGN) we collected and analyzed optical spectroscopic observations. These data show that bulge stellar velocity dispersions ($\sigma_*$) lie in the range of 24$\dots$118~km/s and do not follow the correlation with $M_{BH}$ established by larger SMBHs indicating that in the $10^{5}-10^{6} M_{\odot}$ range the accretion is the prevailing BH growth channel., Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures. Astronomy at the epoch of multimessenger studies. Proceedings of the VAK-2021 conference, Aug 23-28, 2021 - Moscow, 2021

In this paper, we present an algorithm to correct optical light curves obtained using The Zwicky Transient Facility Forced Photometry Service and its application to the analysis of optical variability of 136 actvie galactic nuclei (AGN) powered by "light-weight" supermassive black holes (SMBH; $M_{BH}$<2*10^6 $\odot$) including 24 intermediate-mass black holes (IMBH; $M_{BH}$<2*10^5 $\odot$). We detected variability in nearly all sources and also analyzed its dependence on the X-ray luminosity for 101 objects. We also identified a previously unknown candidate tidal disruption event (TDE) in SDSS~J112637.74+513423.0., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Astronomy at the epoch of multimessenger studies. Proceedings of the VAK-2021 conference, Aug 23-28, 2021 - Moscow, 2021

Giant low surface brightness galaxies (gLSBGs) with the disk radii of up to 130 kpc represent a challenge for currently accepted theories of galaxy formation and evolution, because it is difficult to build-up such large dynamically cold systems via mergers preserving extended disks. We summarize the in-depth study of the sample of 7 gLSBGs based on the results of the performed spectral long-slit observations at the Russian 6-m BTA telescope of SAO RAS, surface photometry and HI data available in literature. Our study revealed that most gLSBGs do not deviate from the Tully-Fisher relation. We discovered compact elliptical (cE) satellites in 2 out of these 7 galaxies. Provided the low statistical frequencies of gLSBGs and cEs, the chance alignment is improbable, so it can indicate that gLSBGs and cE are evolutionary connected and gives evidence in favor of the major merger formation scenario. Other formation paths of gLSBGs are also discussed., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Astronomy at the epoch of multimessenger studies. Proceedings of the VAK-2021 conference, Aug 23-28, 2021 - Moscow, 2021

Ill-posed inverse problems are common in astronomy, and their solutions are unstable with respect to noise in the data. Solutions of such problems are typically found using two classes of methods: parametrization and fitting the data against some predefined function or a solution with a non-parametrical function using regularization. Here we are focusing on the latter non-parametric approach applied for the recovery of complex stellar line-of-sight velocity distribution (LOSVD) from the observed galaxy spectra. Development of such an approach is crucial for galaxies hosting multiple kinematically misaligned stellar components, such as 2 stellar counter-rotating disks, thin and thick disks, kinematically decoupled cores, and others. Stellar LOSVD recovery from the observed galaxy spectra is equivalent to a deconvolution and can be solved as a linear inverse problem. To overcome its ill-posed nature we apply smoothing regularization. Searching for an optimal degree of smoothing regularization is a challenging part of this approach. Here we present a non-parametric fitting technique, discuss its potential caveats, perform numerous tests based on synthetic mock spectra, and show real-world application to MaNGA spectral data cubes and some long-slit spectra of stellar counter-rotating galaxies. GitHub repository: https://github.com/gasymovdf/sla, Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the XXXI Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference (published by ASP); python pip package https://pypi.org/project/sla/

RCSEDv2 (https://rcsed2.voxastro.org/), the second Reference Catalog of Spectral Energy Distributions of galaxies includes the largest homogeneously processed photometric dataset for 4 million galaxies assembled from several wide-field surveys. Here we describe the methodology of the photometric data homogenization. We first correct all photometric measurements for the foreground Galactic extinction, then convert them into the photometric system we adopted as a standard (GALEX + SDSS + UKIDSS + WISE). We computed aperture corrections into several pre-defined apertures by using published galaxy sizes / light profiles and image quality for each of the surveys. We accounted for k-corrections using our own analytic approximations. Such a homogeneous photometric catalog allows us to build fully calibrated SEDs for the galaxies in our sample (defined by the availability of their spectra) and enables direct scientific analysis of this unique extragalactic dataset., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the XXXI Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference (published by ASP)

We present a set of open-source web tools for visualization of spectral and imaging data, which we use in the second Reference Catalogue of Spectral Energy Distributions of galaxies RCSEDv2 (https://rcsed2.voxastro.org/). Using modern web frameworks Quasar and Vue.js we developed interactive viewers to visualize spectra and SEDs of galaxies and the diagrams presenting emission line ratios determined from the analysis of their spectra (BPT diagrams). The viewers are built in Javascript which puts a minimum load on the server side while providing full interactivity for the user. The use of modern web frameworks provides full customization making the viewers easily embeddable into web-sites of astronomical archives and databases. It also provides compatibility with popular third-party web-tools such as Aladin Lite., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the XXXI Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference (published by ASP)

RCSEDv2 (https://rcsed2.voxastro.org/), the second Reference Catalog of Spectral Energy Distributions of galaxies, provides the largest homogeneously analyzed collection of optical galaxy spectra originating from several ground-based surveys collected between 1994 and 2019. The database contains astrophysical parameters obtained using the same data analysis approach from a sample of over 4 million optical spectra of galaxies and quasars: kinematics of stellar populations and ionized gas, chemical composition and age of stellar populations, gas phase metallicity. The dataset is available via Virtual Observatory access interfaces (IVOA TAP and SSAP) and through the web-site. Here we describe the RCSEDv2 spectroscopic dataset and the data processing and analysis., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the XXXI Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference (published by ASP)

The Reference Catalog of Spectral Energy Distributions of 800,000 galaxies (RCSED) includes the results of uniform re-processing of 800,000 SDSS DR7 galaxies at redshifts $0.007

To compare photometric properties of galaxies at different redshifts, we need to correct fluxes for the change of effective rest-frame wavelengths of filter bandpasses, called $k$-corrections. At redshifts $z>0.3$, the wavelength shift becomes so large that typical broadband photometric bands shift into the neighboring rest frame band. At $z=0.6-0.8$ the shift reaches two or even three bands. Therefore, we need perform $k$-corrections from one observed bandpass to another. Here we expand the methodology proposed by Chilingarian et al. (2010) and fit cross-band $k$-corrections by smooth low-order polynomial functions of one observed color and a redshift - this approach but without cross-band is implemented as standard functions in {\sc topcat}, which can be used for galaxies at $z<0.5$. We also computed analytic approximations for WISE bands, which were not available in the past. We now have a complete set of $k$-corrections coefficients, which allow us to process photometric measurements for galaxies out to redshift $z=1$. We calculated standard and cross-band $k$-corrections for about 4 million galaxies in second Reference Catalog of Spectral Energy Distributions (RCSEDv2) of galaxies and we showed that, in cases of widely used UV, optical and near-infrared filters, our analytic approximations work very well and can be used for extragalactic data from future wide-field surveys., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the XXXI Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference (published by ASP)

Multi-dimensional optimization is widely used in virtually all areas of modern astrophysics. However, it is often too computationally expensive to evaluate a model on-the-fly. Typically, it is solved by pre-computing a grid of models for a predetermined set of positions in the parameter space and then interpolating. Here we present a hybrid minimization approach based on the local quadratic approximation of the $\chi^2$ profile from a discrete set of models in a multidimensional parameter space. The main idea of our approach is to eliminate the interpolation of models from the process of finding the best-fitting solution. We present several examples of applications of our minimization technique to the analysis of stellar and extragalactic spectra., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, ADASS-XXXI proceedings

Although S0 galaxies are usually considered "red and dead", they often demonstrate star formation organized into ring structures. We aim to clarify the nature of this phenomenon and how it differs from star formation in spiral galaxies. We investigated the nearby, moderate-luminosity S0 galaxy NGC 254 using long-slit spectroscopy taken with the South African Large Telescope and publicly available imaging data. Applying a full spectral fitting, we analyzed gaseous and stellar kinematics as well as ionized gas excitation and metallicity and stellar population properties resolved by radius. An advanced approach of simultaneously fitting spectra and photometric data allowed us to quantify the fraction of hidden counter-rotating stars in this galaxy. We find that the ionized gas is counter-rotating with respect to the stars throughout NGC 254 disk, indicating an external origin of the gas. We argue the gas-rich galaxy merger from retrograde orbit as a main source of counter-rotating material. The star formation fed by this counter-rotating gas occurs within two rings: an outer ring at R=55 - 70 arcsec and an inner ring at R=18 arcsec. The star formation rate is weak, 0.02 solar mass per year in total, and the gas metallicity is slightly subsolar. We estimated that the accretion of the gas occurred about 1 Gyr ago, and about 1% of all stars have formed in situ from counter-rotating gas., Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

Panoramic IFU spectroscopy is a core tool of modern observational astronomy and is especially important for galaxy physics. Many massive IFU surveys, such as SDSS MaNGA (10k targets), SAMI (3k targets), Califa (600 objects), Atlas3D (260 objects) have recently been released and made publicly available to the broad astronomical community. The complexity and massiveness of the derived data products from spectral cubes makes visualization of the entire dataset challenging, but nevertheless very important and crucial for scientific output. Based on our past experience with visualization of spectral and imaging data built in the frame of the VOxAstro Initiative projects, we are now developing online web service for interactive visualizing spectroscopic IFU datasets (ifu.voxastro.org). Our service will provide a convenient access and visualization tool for spectral cubes from publicly available surveys (MaNGA, SAMI, Califa, Atlas3D) and results of their modeling, as well as maps of parameters derived from cubes, implementing the connected views concept. Here we describe the core components and functionality of the service, including REST API implementation on top of the Django+Postgres backend as well as a fast and responsive user interface built using the modern Vue.js-based framework Quasar., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the XXXI Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference (published by ASP)

This paper documents the seventeenth data release (DR17) from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys; the fifth and final release from the fourth phase (SDSS-IV). DR17 contains the complete release of the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, which reached its goal of surveying over 10,000 nearby galaxies. The complete release of the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar) accompanies this data, providing observations of almost 30,000 stars through the MaNGA instrument during bright time. DR17 also contains the complete release of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) survey which publicly releases infra-red spectra of over 650,000 stars. The main sample from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), as well as the sub-survey Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) data were fully released in DR16. New single-fiber optical spectroscopy released in DR17 is from the SPectroscipic IDentification of ERosita Survey (SPIDERS) sub-survey and the eBOSS-RM program. Along with the primary data sets, DR17 includes 25 new or updated Value Added Catalogs (VACs). This paper concludes the release of SDSS-IV survey data. SDSS continues into its fifth phase with observations already underway for the Milky Way Mapper (MWM), Local Volume Mapper (LVM) and Black Hole Mapper (BHM) surveys., Comment: 40 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables. In press at ApJSS (arxiv v2 corrects some minor typos and updates references)

High-quality stellar spectra are in great demand now - they are the most important ingredient in the stellar population synthesis to study galaxies and star clusters. Here we describe the procedures to increase the quality of flux calibration of stellar spectra. We use examples of NIR intermediate-resolution Echelle spectra collected with the Folded InfraRed Echellete (R~6500, Magellan Baade) and high-resolution UV-optical spectra observed with UVES (R~80000, ESO VLT). By using these procedures, we achieved the quality of the global spectrophotometric calibration as good as 1-2%, which fulfills the requirements for the quality of stellar spectra intended to be used in the stellar population synthesis, Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. ADASS-XXXI proceedings

Faint extended elliptically-shaped ultra-diffuse galaxies and slightly brighter and more compact dwarf elliptical and lenticular stellar systems are common in galaxy clusters. Their poorly constrained evolutionary paths can be studied by identifying young ultra-diffuse galaxy and dwarf elliptical analogs populated with bright, massive stars. Using data mining we identified 11 such low-mass ($2\times10^8

Given their prominent role in galaxy evolution, it is of paramount importance to unveil galaxy interactions and merger events and to investigate the underlying mechanisms. The use of high-resolution data makes it easier to identify merging systems, but it can still be challenging when the morphology does not show any clear galaxy-pair or gas bridge. Characterising the origin of puzzling kinematic features can help to reveal complicated systems. Here, we present a merging galaxy, MaNGA 1-114955, in which we highlighted the superimposition of two distinct rotating discs along the line of sight. These counter-rotating objects both lie on the star-forming main sequence but display perturbed stellar velocity dispersions. The main galaxy presents off-centred star formation as well as off-centred high-metallicity regions supporting the scenario of recent starbursts, while the secondary galaxy hosts a central starburst which coincides with an extended radio emission, in excess with respect to star formation expectations. Stellar mass as well as dynamical mass estimates agree towards a mass ratio within the visible radius of 9:1 for these interacting galaxies. We suggest we are observing a pre-coalescence stage of a merger. The primary galaxy has accreted gas through a past first pericentre passage about 1 Gyr ago, and more recently from the secondary gas-rich galaxy, which exhibits an underlying active galactic nucleus (AGN). Our results demonstrate how a galaxy can hide another one and the relevance of a multi-component approach to study ambiguous systems. We anticipate our method to be efficient at unveiling the mechanisms taking place in a sub-sample of galaxies observed by the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey, all exhibiting kinematic features of puzzling origin in their gas emission lines., Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

One way an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) influences the evolution of their host galaxy is by generating a large-scale (kpc-scale) outflow. The content, energetics, and impact of such outflows depend on the properties of both the AGN and host galaxy, and understanding the relationship between them requires measuring the properties of all three. In this paper, we do so by analyzing recent radio and optical integral field unit (IFU) spectroscopic observations of MaNGA 1-166919. Our results indicate that the bi-conical outflow in this galaxy is powered by a low-luminosity, low-Eddington ratio AGN ejecting material that drives ~100-200 km/s shocks into the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM) -- producing the hot, ionized gas and relativistic particles associated with the observed outflow. The energetics of the relativistic and ionized gas material produced at this shock are comparable, and both the mass outflow and kinetic power of the ionized gas in this outflow are higher than other AGN with similar bolometric luminosities. Lastly, while the host galaxy's total star formation rate is comparable to that of other star-forming galaxies with a similar stellar mass, there is evidence that the outflow both suppresses and enhances star formation in its immediate surroundings., Comment: 29 pages, 28 figures, 11 tables, accepted by The Astrophysical Journal for publication

Giant low surface brightness galaxies (gLSBGs) with dynamically cold stellar discs reaching the radius of 130 kpc challenge currently considered galaxy formation mechanisms. We analyse new deep long-slit optical spectroscopic observations, archival optical images and published HI and optical spectroscopic data for a sample of seven gLSBGs, for which we performed mass modelling and estimated the parameters of dark matter haloes assuming the Burkert dark matter density profile. Our sample is not homogeneous by morphology, parameters of stellar populations and total mass, however, six of seven galaxies sit on the high-mass extension of the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation. In UGC 1382 we detected a global counterrotation of the stellar high surface brightness (HSB) disc with respect to the extended LSB disc. In UGC 1922 with signatures of a possible merger, the gas counterrotation is seen in the inner disc. Six galaxies host active galactic nuclei, three of which have the estimated black hole masses substantially below those expected for their (pseudo-)bulge properties suggesting poor merger histories. Overall, the morphology, internal dynamics, and low star formation efficiency in the outer discs indicate that the three formation scenarios shape gLSBGs: (i) a two-stage formation when an HSB galaxy is formed first and then grows an LSB disc by accreting gas from an external supply; (ii) an unusual shallow and extended dark matter halo; (iii) a major merger with fine-tuned orbital parameters and morphologies of the merging galaxies., Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures, 8 tables, accepted version after proofreading

Mergers can be detected as double-peak narrow emission line galaxies but they are difficult to disentangle from disc rotations and gas outflows. We aim to properly detect such galaxies and distinguish the underlying mechanisms. Relying on RCSED, we developed an automated selection procedure and found 5663 double-peak emission line galaxies at z<0.34 corresponding to 0.8% of the parent database. To characterise these galaxies, we built a single-peak no-bias control sample (NBCS) with the same redshift and stellar mass distributions as the double-peak sample (DPS). These two samples are indeed very similar in terms of absolute magnitude, [OIII] luminosity, colour-colour diagrams, age and specific star formation rate, metallicity, and environment. We find an important excess of S0 galaxies in the DPS, not observed in the NBCS, and which cannot be accounted for by the environment, as most of these galaxies are isolated or in poor groups. Similarly, we find a relative deficit of pure discs in the DPS late-type galaxies, that are preferentially of Sa type. In parallel, we observe a systematic central excess of star formation and extinction for DP galaxies. Finally, there are noticeable differences in the kinematics: the gas velocity dispersion is correlated with the galaxy inclination in the NBCS, whereas this relation does not hold for the DPS. Furthermore, the DP galaxies show larger stellar velocity dispersions and they deviate from the Tully-Fisher relation for both late-type and S0 galaxies. These discrepancies can be reconciled if one considers the two peaks as two different components. Considering the morphological biases in favour, bulge-dominated galaxies and star-formation central enhancement, we suggest a scenario of multiple sequential minor mergers driving the increase of the bulge size, leading to larger fractions of S0 galaxies and a deficit of pure disc galaxies., Comment: 30 pages, 27 figures, article accepted to A&A

We present a multi-wavelength study of the active galactic nucleus in the nearby ($D=14.1$ Mpc) low mass galaxy IC 750, which has circumnuclear 22 GHz water maser emission. The masers trace a nearly edge-on, warped disk $\sim$0.2 pc in diameter, coincident with the compact nuclear X-ray source which lies at the base of the $\sim$kpc-scale extended X-ray emission. The position-velocity structure of the maser emission indicates the central black hole (BH) has a mass less than $1.4 \times 10^5~M_\odot$. Keplerian rotation curves fitted to these data yield enclosed masses between $4.1 \times 10^4~M_\odot$ and $1.4 \times 10^5~M_\odot$, with a mode of $7.2 \times 10^4~M_\odot$. Fitting the optical spectrum, we measure a nuclear stellar velocity dispersion $\sigma_* = 110.7^{+12.1}_{-13.4}$~{\rm km~s}$^{-1}.$ From near-infrared photometry, we fit a bulge mass of $(7.3 \pm 2.7) \times 10^8~M_\odot$ and a stellar mass of $1.4 \times 10^{10}~M_\odot$. The mass upper limit of the intermediate mass black hole in IC 750 falls roughly two orders of magnitude below the $M_{\rm BH}-\sigma_*$ relation and roughly one order of magnitude below the $M_{\rm BH}-M_{\rm Bulge}$ and $M_{\rm BH}-M_*$ relations -- larger than the relations' intrinsic scatters of (0.58 $\pm$ 0.09) dex, 0.69 dex, and (0.65 $\pm$ 0.09) dex, respectively. These offsets could be due to larger scatter at the low mass end of these relations. Alternatively, black hole growth is intrinsically inefficient in galaxies with low bulge and/or stellar masses, which causes the black holes to be under-massive relative to their hosts, as predicted by some galaxy evolution simulations., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

Giant low surface brightness galaxies (gLSB) with radii of discs as large as 130 kpc challenge galaxy formation scenarios and it is still not well understood how they form and evolve through the cosmic time. Here we present analysis of deep long-slit spectroscopic observations of six gLSBs that we obtained with the Russian 6-m telescope: UGC 1922, Malin 2, UGC 6614, UGC1382, NGC 7589 and UGC 1378. We derived spatially resolved properties of stellar and ionized gas kinematics and characteristics of stellar populations and interstellar medium. The stars in the central regions are old and metal rich for most of the galaxies. We revealed the presence of a kinematically decoupled central component in the inner regions of UGC1922, UGC1382 and UGC6614, where we detected counter-rotating kinematical components. We combine the results of our observations with the results available in literature. There seems to be a need for diversity of gLSBs formation scenarios: (i) some of them could have formed by in-plane mergers of massive galaxies; (ii) for some others the major merger scenario is excluded by our data. We revealed that most of gLSBs are situated in low-density environment which possibly helped to preserve the giant discs. At the same time at some point of the formation history of these systems there should exist a reservoir of gas from which the massive discs were formed. Future observations and detailed comparison with numerical simulations of galaxy formation in the cosmological contest will help to clarify which gLSB formation channel is more important., Comment: Conference proceeding for the IAU Symposium 355 "The Realm of the Low Surface Brightness Universe" held in Tenerife, Spain, July 8-12, 2019

The mass-luminosity relation is a fundamental law of astrophysics. We have suggested that the currently used mass-luminosity relation is not correct for the M/M_sun > 2.7 range of mass since it was created using double-lined eclipsing binaries, where the components are synchronized and consequently change each other's evolutionary path. To exclude this effect we have started a project to study long-period massive eclipsing binaries in order to construct radial velocity curves and determine masses for the components. We outline our project and present the selected test sample together with the first HRS/SALT spectral observations and the software package, FBS (Fitting Binary Stars), that we developed for the analysis of our spectral data. As the first result we present the radial velocity curves and best-fit orbital elements for the two components of the FP Car binary system from our test sample., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Galactic discs are known to have a complex multilayer structure. An in-depth study of the stellar population properties of the thin and thick components can elucidate the formation and evolution of disc galaxies. Even though thick discs are ubiquitous, their origin is still debated. Here we probe the thick disc formation scenarios by investigating NGC7572, an enormous edge-on galaxy having $R_{25}\approx 25$ kpc and $V_{\rm rot} \approx 370$ km s$^{-1}$, which substantially exceeds the Milky Way size and mass. We analysed DECaLS archival imaging and found that the disc of NGC7572 contains two flaring stellar discs (a thin and a thick disc) with similar radial scales. We collected deep long-slit spectroscopic data using the 6m Russian BTA telescope and analysed them with a novel technique. We first reconstructed a non-parametric stellar line-of-sight velocity distribution along the radius of the galaxy and then fitted it with two kinematic components accounting for the orbital distribution of stars in thin and thick discs. The old thick disc turned out to be 2.7 times as massive as the intermediate-age thin component, $1.6\times 10^{11}$ $\textrm{M}_{\odot}$ vs. $5.9\times10^{10}$ $\textrm{M}_{\odot}$, which is very unusual. The different duration of the formation epochs evidenced by the [Mg/Fe] values of +0.3 and +0.15 dex for the thick and thin discs respectively, their kinematics and the mass ratio suggest that in NGC7572 we observe a rapidly formed very massive thick disc and an underdeveloped thin disc, whose growth ended prematurely due to the exhaustion of the cold gas likely because of environmental effects., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, submitted to MNRAS

Observational studies of ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) represent a significant challenge because of their very low surface brightnesses. A feasible approach is to identify "future" UDGs when their stars are still young. Using data mining, we found 12 such low-mass spatially extended quiescent galaxies in the Coma and Abell 2147 clusters in the SDSS legacy galaxy sample and followed them up using a new high-throughput Binospec spectrograph at the 6.5m MMT. Several of them exhibit signs of the recently finished ram pressure stripping. Here we describe our data analysis approach that uses spectroscopic and photometric measurements with a dedicated set of stellar population models, which include realistic chemical enrichment and star formation histories. From our analysis we can precisely estimate stellar mass-to-light ratios and dark matter content of UDGs., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Conference proceeding for the IAU Symposium 355 "The Realm of the Low Surface Brightness Universe" held in Tenerife, Spain, July 8-12, 2019

The dominant physical processes responsible for the formation and longevity of giant gaseous and stellar discs in galaxies remain controversial. Although they are rare (less than 10 confirmed as of now), giant low-surface brightness (gLSB) discy galaxies provide interesting insights given their extreme nature. We describe observations of UGC 1378 including deep spectroscopy with the Russian 6m telescope and multi-band imaging with Binospec at the MMT. Galaxy UGC 1378 has both high surface brightness and an extended low surface brightness discs. Our stellar velocity dispersion data for the high-surface brightness, Milky Way-sized, disc appears inconsistent with a recent major merger, a widely discussed formation scenario for the very extended low surface brightness disc. We estimate the star formation rates (SFR) from archival Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer data. The SFR surface density in the LSB disc is low relative to its gas density, consistent with recent gas accretion. We argue that the unusually large size of UGC 1378's disc may be the product of a rich gas reservoir (e.g. a cosmic filament) and an isolated environment that has preserved the giant disc., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 10 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables

The formation scenario for giant low surface brightness (gLSB) galaxies with discs as large as 100 kpc still remains unclear. These stellar systems are rare and very hard to observe, therefore a detailed insight on every additional object helps to understand their nature. Here we present a detailed observational study of the gLSB UGC 1922 performed using deep optical imaging and spectroscopic observations combined with archival ultraviolet data. We derived spatially resolved properties of stellar and ionized gas kinematics and characteristics of stellar populations and interstellar medium. We reveal the presence of a kinematically decoupled central component, which counter rotates with respect to the main disc of UGC 1922. The radial metallicity gradient of the ionised gas is in agreement with that found for moderate-size LSB galaxies. At the same time, a slowly rotating and dynamically hot central region of the galaxy hosts a large number of old metal-rich stars, which creates an appearance of a giant elliptical galaxy, that grew an enormous star forming disc. We reproduce most of the observed features of UGC 1922 in N-body/hydrodynamical simulations of an in-plane merger of giant Sa and Sd galaxies. We also discuss alternative formation scenarios of this unusual system., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Galactic stellar discs, such as that of the Milky Way, have usually a complex structure consisting of a thin and a thick component. The study of galactic disc substructures and their differences can shed light on the galaxy assembling processes and their evolution. However, due to observational difficulties there is a lack of information about the stellar populations of the thick disc components in external galaxies. Here we investigate three edge-on early-type disc galaxies in the Fornax cluster IC335, NGC1380A, NGC1381 by using publicly available photometrical data and our new deep long-slit spectroscopy along galactic mid-planes obtained with the 10-m SALT telescope. We report that significant changes of the stellar population properties beyond the radius where photometrical profiles demonstrate a knee are caused by an increasing thick disc contribution. Stellar population properties in the outermost thick-disc dominated regions demonstrate remarkably old ages and a low metallicity. We interpret these findings as a consequence of star formation quenching in the outermost regions of the discs due to ram pressure gas stripping from the disc periphery at the beginning of the cluster assembly while subsequent star formation occurring in the inner discs being gradually extinguished by starvation., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures; Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Nearly every massive galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in its nucleus. SMBH masses are millions to billions $M_{\odot}$, and they correlate with properties of spheroids of their host galaxies. While the SMBH growth channels, mergers and gas accretion, are well established, their origin remains uncertain: they could have either emerged from massive "seeds" ($10^5-10^6 M_{\odot}$) formed by direct collapse of gas clouds in the early Universe or from smaller ($100 M_{\odot}$) black holes, end-products of first stars. The latter channel would leave behind numerous intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs, $10^2-10^5 M_{\odot}$). Although many IMBH candidates have been identified, none is accepted as definitive, thus their very existence is still debated. Using data mining in wide-field sky surveys and applying dedicated analysis to archival and follow-up optical spectra, we identified a sample of 305 IMBH candidates having masses $3\times10^4

We present RCSED, the value-added Reference Catalog of Spectral Energy Distributions of galaxies, which contains homogenized spectrophotometric data for 800,299 low and intermediate redshift galaxies (0.007

We examined the reliability of estimates of pseudoisothermal, Burkert and NFW dark halo parameters for the methods based on the mass-modelling of the rotation curves.To do it we constructed the $\chi^2$ maps for the grid of the dark matter halo parameters for a sample of 14 disc galaxies with high quality rotation curves from THINGS. We considered two variants of models in which: a) the mass-to-light ratios of disc and bulge were taken as free parameters, b) the mass-to-light ratios were fixed in a narrow range according to the models of stellar populations. To reproduce the possible observational features of the real galaxies we made tests showing that the parameters of the three halo types change critically in the cases of a lack of kinematic data in the central or peripheral areas and for different spatial resolutions. We showed that due to the degeneracy between the central densities and the radial scales of the dark haloes there are considerable uncertainties of their concentrations estimates. Due to this reason it is also impossible to draw any firm conclusion about universality of the dark halo column density based on mass-modelling of even a high quality rotation curve. The problem is not solved by fixing the density of baryonic matter. In contrast, the estimates of dark halo mass within optical radius are much more reliable. We demonstrated that one can evaluate successfully the halo mass using the pure best-fitting method without any restrictions on the mass-to-light ratios., Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The counter-rotation phenomenon in disc galaxies directly indicates a complex galaxy assembly history which is crucial for our understanding of galaxy physics. Here we present the complex data analysis for a lenticular galaxy NGC 448, which has been recently suspected to host a counter-rotating stellar component. We collected deep long-slit spectroscopic observations using the Russian 6-m telescope and performed the photometric decomposition of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archival images. We exploited (i) a non-parametric approach in order to recover stellar line-of-sight velocity distributions and (ii) a parametric spectral decomposition technique in order to disentangle stellar population properties of both main and counter-rotating stellar discs. Our spectral decomposition stays in perfect agreement with the photometric analysis. The counter-rotating component contributes $\approx$30 per cent to the total galaxy light. We estimated its stellar mass to be $9.0^{+2.7}_{-1.8}\cdot10^{9}M_\odot$. The radial scale length of counter-rotating disc is $\approx$3 times smaller than that of the main disc. Both discs harbour old stars but the counter-rotating components reveals a detectable negative age gradient that might suggest an extended inside-out formation during $3\dots4$ Gyrs. The counter-rotating disc hosts more metal-rich stars and possesses a shallower metallicity gradient with respect to the main disc. Our findings rule out cosmological filaments as a source of external accretion which is considered as a potential mechanism of the counter-rotating component formation in NGC 448, and favour the satellite merger event with the consequent slow gas accretion., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Although thick stellar discs are detected in nearly all edge-on disc galaxies, their formation scenarios still remain a matter of debate. Due to observational difficulties, there is a lack of information about their stellar populations. Using the Russian 6-m telescope BTA we collected deep spectra of thick discs in three edge-on S0-a disc galaxies located in different environments: NGC4111 in a dense group, NGC4710 in the Virgo cluster, and NGC5422 in a sparse group. We see intermediate age (4-5 Gyr) metal rich ([Fe/H] $\sim$ -0.2 - 0.0 dex) stellar populations in NGC4111 and NGC4710. On the other hand, NGC5422 does not harbour young stars, its disc is thick and old (10 Gyr), without evidence for a second component, and its $\alpha$-element abundance suggests a 1.5-2 Gyr long formation epoch implying its formation at high redshift. Our results suggest the diversity of thick disc formation scenarios., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters, 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

We present a new stellar atmosphere interpolator which we will use to compute stellar population models based on empirical and/or synthetic spectra. We combined observed and synthetic stellar spectra in order to achieve more or less uniform coverage of the (T_eff , log g, [Fe/H]) parameter space. We validated our semi-empirical stellar population models by fitting spectra of early-type galaxies from the SDSS survey, Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to The Proceedings of the ADASS XXV meeting

By combining new long-slit spectral data obtained with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) for 9 galaxies with previously published our observations for additional 12 galaxies we study the stellar and gaseous kinematics as well as radially resolved stellar population properties and ionized gas metallicity and excitation for a sample of isolated lenticular galaxies. We have found that there is no particular time frame of formation for the isolated lenticular galaxies: the mean stellar ages of the bulges and disks are distributed between 1 and > 13 Gyr, and the bulge and the disk in every galaxy formed synchronously demonstrating similar stellar ages and magnesium-to-iron ratios. Extended ionized-gas disks are found in the majority of the isolated lenticular galaxies, in 72%$\pm$11%. The half of all extended gaseous disks demonstrate visible counterrotation with respect to their stellar counterparts. We argue that just such fraction of projected counterrotation is expected if all the gas in isolated lenticular galaxies is accreted from outside, under the assumption of isotropically distributed external sources. A very narrow range of the gas oxygen abundances found by us for the outer ionized gas disks excited by young stars, [O/H] from 0.0 to +0.2 dex, gives evidence for the satellite merging as the most probable source of this accretion. At last we formulate a hypothesis that morphological type of a field disk galaxy is completely determined by the outer cold-gas accretion regime., Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures and appendix consisted of 9 figures. Accepted for publication in the AJ

In this paper we present the results of long-slit spectral observations for a sample of isolated lenticular galaxies, made with the SCORPIO and SCORPIO-2 spectrographs of the 6-meter BTA telescope of the SAO RAS. By applying full spectral fitting technique using the stellar population evolutionary synthesis models, we have measured the radial profiles of the stellar line-of-sight velocity as well as the velocity dispersion, SSP-equivalent age and SSP-equivalent metallicity of stars along the radius in 12 targets. The resulting averaged ages of the stellar population in bulges and discs cover an entire range of possible values from 1.5 to 15 Gyr which indicates the absence of a certain formation epoch for the structural components in the isolated lenticular galaxies, unlike in the members of clusters and rich groups: they could have been formed at a redshift of $z>2$ as well as only a few billion years ago. Unlike S0 galaxies in more dense environments, the isolated galaxies typically have the same age of stars in the bulges and discs. The disc-embedded lenses and rings of increased stellar brightness, identified from the photometry in 7 of 11 galaxies, do not differ strongly from the stellar discs as concerning the properties of stellar populations and stellar velocity dispersion. We conclude that the final shaping of the morphological type of a lenticular galaxy in complete isolation is critically dependent on the possible regimes of cold-gas accretion from outside., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, revised version of paper Katkov et al. Astrophysical Bulletin 69, 121 (2014) (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AstBu..69..121K)

This work is dedicated to investigation of galaxies that do not fit into a common scenario of galaxy formation - isolated lenticular galaxies. We have studied stellar populations and ionized gas content of a sample of 22 lenticular galaxies (among those 4 targets have appeared to be of erroneous morphological classification) by undertaking deep long-slit spectroscopy with the Russian 6-m telescope and with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). The obtained average ages of the stellar populations in bulges and discs covers a wide range between 1.5 and >15 Gyr, that indicates the absence of distinct epoch of their stellar content formation. In contrast to galaxies in groups and clusters, the stellar population ages in bulges and discs of isolated lenticulars tend to be equal, that supports the inefficiency of the bulge rejuvenation in sparse environment. Almost all the lenses and rings possess intermediate ages of the stellar populations, within the range of 2-5 Gyr. By analyzing the emission-line spectra of galaxies, we have found that 13 out of 18 (72+/-11 %) objects of our sample possess extended emission-line structures; among those, 6 galaxies (46+/-14 %) demonstrate decoupled gas kinematics with respect to their stellar discs. We have found starforming off-nuclear regions in 10 galaxies; their gas oxygen abundances are nearly solar that implies tidal gas accretion from gas-rich dwarf satellites rather than accretion from cosmological large-scale structure filaments., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables; the translate of strongly abridged version of PhD thesis