Casey J. Papovich

Publications (2)6.02 Total impact

• Source

  Available from: arxiv.org

  Article: The Origin of the 24 μm Excess in Red Galaxies

  Kate Brand, John Moustakas, Lee Armus, Roberto J. Assef, Michael J. I. Brown, Richard R. Cool, Vandana Desai, Arjun Dey, Emeric Le Floc'h, Buell T. Jannuzi, Christopher S. Kochanek, Jason Melbourne, Casey J. Papovich, and B. T. Soifer
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  ABSTRACT: Observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope have revealed a population of red sequence galaxies with a significant excess in their 24 μm emission compared to what is expected from an old stellar population. We identify ~900 red galaxies with 0.15 ≤ z ≤ 0.3 from the AGN and Galaxy Evolution Survey (AGES) selected from the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey Boötes field. Using Spitzer MIPS, we classify 89 (~10%) with 24 μm infrared excess (f 24 ≥ 0.3 mJy). We determine the prevalence of active galactic nucleus (AGN) and star-formation activity in all the AGES galaxies using optical line diagnostics and mid-IR color-color criteria. Using the IRAC color-color diagram from the Spitzer Shallow Survey, we find that 64% of the 24 μm excess red galaxies are likely to have strong polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission features in the 8 μm IRAC band. This fraction is significantly larger than the 5% of red galaxies with f 24< 0.3 mJy that are estimated to have strong PAH emission, suggesting that the infrared emission is largely due to star-formation processes. Only 15% of the 24 μm excess red galaxies have optical line diagnostics characteristic of star formation (64% are classified as AGN and 21% are unclassifiable). The difference between the optical and infrared results suggests that both AGN and star-formation activity are occurring simultaneously in many of the 24 μm excess red galaxies. These results should serve as a warning to studies that exclusively use optical line diagnostics to determine the dominant emission mechanism in the infrared and other bands. We find that ~40% of the 24 μm excess red galaxies are edge-on spiral galaxies with high optical extinctions. The remaining sources are likely to be red galaxies whose 24 μm emission comes from a combination of obscured AGN and star-formation activity.
  The Astrophysical Journal 03/2009; 693(1):340. · 6.02 Impact Factor
• Source

  Available from: ArXiv

  Article: The Origin of the 24-micron Excess in Red Galaxies

  Kate Brand, John Moustakas, Lee Armus, Roberto J. Assef, Michael J. I. Brown, Richard R. Cool, Vandana Desai, Arjun Dey, Emeric Le Floc'h, Buell T. Jannuzi, Christopher S. Kochanek, Jason Melbourne, Casey J. Papovich, B. T. Soifer
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: Observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope have revealed a population of red-sequence galaxies with a significant excess in their 24-micron emission compared to what is expected from an old stellar population. We identify 900 red galaxies with 0.15<z<0.3 from the AGN and Galaxy Evolution Survey (AGES) selected from the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey Bootes field. Using Spitzer/MIPS, we classify 89 (~10%) with 24-micron infrared excess (f24>0.3 mJy). We determine the prevalence of AGN and star-formation activity in all the AGES galaxies using optical line diagnostics and mid-IR color-color criteria. Using the IRAC color-color diagram from the IRAC Shallow Survey, we find that 64% of the 24-micron excess red galaxies are likely to have strong PAH emission features in the 8-micron IRAC band. This fraction is significantly larger than the 5% of red galaxies with f24<0.3 mJy that are estimated to have strong PAH emission, suggesting that the infrared emission is largely due to star-formation processes. Only 15% of the 24-micron excess red galaxies have optical line diagnostics characteristic of star-formation (64% are classified as AGN and 21% are unclassifiable). The difference between the optical and infrared results suggest that both AGN and star-formation activity is occurring simultaneously in many of the 24-micron excess red galaxies. These results should serve as a warning to studies that exclusively use optical line diagnostics to determine the dominant emission mechanism in the infrared and other bands. We find that ~40% of the 24-micron excess red galaxies are edge-on spiral galaxies with high optical extinctions. The remaining sources are likely to be red galaxies whose 24-micron emission comes from a combination of obscured AGN and star-formation activity.
  11/2008;