English

The Lyman alpha reference sample. VII. Spatially resolved H$\alpha$ kinematics

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2016-02-24 v1

Abstract

We present integral field spectroscopic observations with the Potsdam Multi Aperture Spectrophotometer of all 14 galaxies in the z0.1z\sim 0.1 Lyman Alpha Reference Sample (LARS). We produce 2D line of sight velocity maps and velocity dispersion maps from the Balmer α\alpha (Hα\alpha) emission in our data cubes. These maps trace the spectral and spatial properties of the LARS galaxies' intrinsic Lyα\alpha radiation field. We show our kinematic maps spatially registered onto the Hubble Space Telescope Hα\alpha and Lyman α\alpha (Lyα\alpha) images. Only for individual galaxies a causal connection between spatially resolved Hα\alpha kinematics and Lyα\alpha photometry can be conjectured. However, no general trend can be established for the whole sample. Furthermore, we compute non-parametric global kinematical statistics -- intrinsic velocity dispersion σ0\sigma_0, shearing velocity vshearv_\mathrm{shear}, and the vshear/σ0v_\mathrm{shear}/\sigma_0 ratio -- from our kinematic maps. In general LARS galaxies are characterised by high intrinsic velocity dispersions (54\,km\,s1^{-1} median) and low shearing velocities (65\,km\,s1^{-1} median). vshear/σ0v_\mathrm{shear}/\sigma_0 values range from 0.5 to 3.2 with an average of 1.5. Noteworthy, five galaxies of the sample are dispersion dominated systems with vshear/σ0<1v_\mathrm{shear}/\sigma_0 <1 and are thus kinematically similar to turbulent star forming galaxies seen at high redshift. When linking our kinematical statistics to the global LARS Lyα\alpha properties, we find that dispersion dominated systems show higher Lyα\alpha equivalent widths and higher Lyα\alpha escape fractions than systems with vshear/σ0>1v_\mathrm{shear}/\sigma_0 > 1. Our result indicates that turbulence in actively star-forming systems is causally connected to interstellar medium conditions that favour an escape of Lyα\alpha radiation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1511.05406,
  title  = {The Lyman alpha reference sample. VII. Spatially resolved H$\alpha$ kinematics},
  author = {Edmund Christian Herenz and Pieter Gruyters and Ivana Orlitova and Matthew Hayes and Göran Östlin and John M. Cannon and Martin M. Roth and Arjan Bik and Stephen Pardy and Héctor Otí-Floranes and J. Miguel Mas-Hesse and Angela Adamo and Hakim Atek and Florent Duval and Lucia Guaita and Daniel Kunth and Peter Laursen and Jens Melinder and Johannes Puschnig and Thøger E. Rivera-Thorsen and Daniel Schaerer and Anne Verhamme},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.05406},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

26 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

R2 v1 2026-06-22T11:47:27.688Z