UW SALT Science Update SALT Science Day November 2012

Megaflares on tiny stars with SALT M-dwarf brightens by factor of 100. Spectra taken every sec. 70x faster than VLT! Papers in prep now; second semester of YZ CMi observations starting Dec Jan 13, 2012 [Å][Å]

A project on accreting and hydrogen burning white dwarfs: Emission lines are diagnostics of accretion, irradiation, nebular physics, hydrogen burning… a number of lines in U and optical range are extremely useful. Upper panel shows how with SALT we zoom in the region of [Fe X] 6375 and follow its intensity during the orbital period of SMC 3, symbiotic star in the SMC with super-hot WD (~450,000 K), in order to monitor the temperature of the central source and the persistence of hydrogen burning. We measure radial velocity of “right lines” to determine masses. Lines must be produced very close to WD, but often the strongest ones are not good indicators of radial velocity. Good indicators can be quite faint, hard to measure. Most quiescent novae, symbiotic binaries, supersoft X-ray sources are observed at large distances and a large mirror increases possibilities and statistics of objects, allowing a new horizon for these studies

NGC 1377: S0 galaxy, weak nuclear emission (Palomar 5-m), but lies off galaxy far infrared-radio luminosity correlation by factor of 30+ (no radio continuum detection, deep 10 micron absorption, strong FIR). What gives??? CO nuclear outflow Aalto A&A, 546: SMA

Na D [NII] Hα [SII] Deep Hα absorption -> post-starburst Strong [NII]- LINER Gas kinematics!: absorption -emission NGC 1377:Optical Perspectives: SALT-RSS to the rescue: Emission line data- LINER nuclear spectrum; Na I vs. HII kinematics- compare CO (ALMA); postburst Paper in Preparation J. Gallagher J. Ryon Wisconsin S. Aalto Chalmers U Sweden +….

Rotation of gas off the plane of ESO 435- G25 Arthur Eigenbrot, Matt Bershady, Andrew Schechtman-Rook [OIII] gas rotation Longslit data at 4 different heights (2 extremes shown above Total exposure time: 8.8 hr (P1 + P2) Target galaxy

Rotation of gas off the plane of ESO 435- G25 Arthur Eigenbrot, Matt Bershady, Andrew Schechtman-Rook XV diagrams at all heights Data out to ~8 scale lengths!

Tidal Tail and Main Body Abundances in NGC 1140 Jenna Ryon (PI), Jay Gallagher

The Nature of an Unusual Post-Starburst Galaxy with Extremely Strong [Ne V] Emission John Chisholm, Christy Tremonti and Tenzin Choedak SDSS Optical Spectra in black, error in green and a stellar population fit in red. Important emission and absorption lines are labeled in blue

z=1.10 z=1.07 z=0.85 z=0.84 Spectroscopic follow-up of UV-selected Lyα emitters

Properties of Quasar Host Galaxies Greg Mosby, Marsha Wolf, Christy Tremonti, and Eric Hooper SSPMODEL Above: A schematic showing the observation technique using SALT’s RSS and an ideal pair of spectra that would be used at input to a stellar population modeling code developed by Mosby to determine host galaxy properties. The goal of this work is to understand connections between galaxies and the supermassive black holes at their centers, in the context of galaxy formation and evolution. We study this through the properties of luminous quasar host galaxies, objects in which the galaxy is actively feeding its black hole. This proposal focuses on a carefully selected sample of SDSS quasars, chosen over well-defined ranges of black hole mass, redshift and Eddington ratio in order to draw robust conclusions about these objects.