RT Journal Article
T1 Spectroscopic aperture biases in inside-out evolving early-type galaxies from CALIFA
A1 Gomes, J. M.
A1 Papaderos, P.
A1 Vílchez, J. M.
A1 Kehrig, C.
A1 Iglesias Páramo, J.
A1 Breda, I.
A1 Lehnert, M. D.
A1 Sánchez, S. F.
A1 Ziegler, B.
A1 dos Reis, S. N.
A1 Bland Hawthorn, J.
A1 Galbany, L.
A1 Bomans, D. J.
A1 Rosales Ortega, F. F.
A1 Walcher, C. J.
A1 García Benito, R.
A1 Márquez, I.
A1 del Olmo, A.
A1 Mollá, M.
A1 Marino, Raffaella Anna
A1 Catalán Torrecilla, Cristina
A1 González Delgado, R. M.
A1 López Sánchez, Á. R.
A1 CALIFA Team, 
AB Integral field spectroscopy (IFS) studies based on CALIFA survey data have recently revealed ongoing low-level star formation (SF) in the periphery of a small fraction (~10%) of local early-type galaxies (ETGs), witnessing a still ongoing inside-out galaxy growth process. A distinctive property of the nebular component in these ETGs, classified i+, is a structure with two radial zones, the inner of which displays LINER emission with a Hα equivalent width EW(Hα) ≃ 1 Å, the outer (3 Å <EW(Hα) ≲ 20 Å) Hii-region characteristics. Using CALIFA IFS data, we empirically demonstrate that the confinement of nebular emission to the galaxy periphery leads to a strong aperture (or, correspondingly, redshift) bias in spectroscopic single-fiber studies of type i+ ETGs: at low redshift (z ≲ 0.45), SDSS spectroscopy is restricted to the inner (SF-devoid LINER) zone, which causes the galaxies to be erroneously classified as “retired”, that is, systems entirely lacking SF, and whose faint nebular emissionis solely powered by the post-AGB stellar component. The SDSS aperture progressively encompasses the outer SF zone only at higher z, at which the galaxies are unambiguously classified as “composite SF/LINER”. We also empirically demonstrate that the principal effect of a decreasing spectroscopic aperture on the classification of i+ ETGs through standard [Nii]/Hα vs. [Oiii]/Hβ emission-line (BPT) ratios consists of a monotonic shift upward and to the right precisely along the upper right wing of the “seagull” distribution on the BPT plane, that is, along the pathway connecting composite SF/Hii galaxies with AGN/LINERs. Motivated by these observational insights, we also investigate theoretically observational biases in aperture-limited studies of inside-out growing galaxies as a function of z. To this end, we devise a simple 1D model that involves an outward-propagating exponentially decreasing SF process since z ~ 10 and reproduces the radial extent and two-zone EW(Hα) distribution of local i+ ETGs. By simulating the 3′′ spectroscopic SDSS aperture in this model, we find that SDSS studies at z ≲ 1 are progressively restricted to the inner (SF-devoid LINER) zone and miss an increasingly larger portion of the Hα-emitting periphery. This leads to the incorrect spectroscopic classification of these inside-out assembling galaxies as retired ETG/LINERs and also to a severe underestimation of their total star formation rate (SFR) in a manner inversely related to z. More specifically, the SFR inferred from the Hα luminosity registered within the SDSS fiber is reduced by 50% at z ~ 0.86, reaching only 0.1% of its integral value at z = 0.1. We argue that the aperture-driven biases described above pertain to any morphological analog of i+ ETGs (e.g., SF-quiescent bulges within star-forming disks), regardless of whether it is viewed from the perspective of inside-out growth or inside-out SF quenching, and might be of considerable relevance to galaxy taxonomy and studies of the cosmic SFR density as a function of z.
PB EDP Sciencies
SN 1432-0746
YR 2016
FD 2016-02
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/24441
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/24441
LA eng
NO Unión Europea - FP7
NO Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España)
NO Ministerio de Economía, Comercio y Empresa (España)
NO Centro Astronómico Hispano Alemán
NO Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
NO Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional
NO The World Bank
NO Ministério da Educação e Ciência (Portugal)
NO Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (Chile)
NO Universidad Autónoma de México
NO Millennium Science Initiative
NO Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico, Tecnológico y de Innovación Tecnológica (Chile)
NO Marie Curie Career Integration Grant
NO Junta de Andalucía
NO Campus de Excelencia Internacional Moncloa
NO National Aeronautics and Space Administration
DS Docta Complutense
RD 8 jun 2025