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The Ionization of the Warm Gas in Early-type Galaxies and Its UV Upturn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2015

Renbin Yan
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40506, USA email: renbin@pa.uky.edu Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA email: michael.blanton@nyu.edu
Michael R. Blanton
Affiliation:
Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA email: michael.blanton@nyu.edu
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It has long been known that the majority of early-type galaxies contain warm ionized gas producing optical emission lines. These warm ionized gas are spatially extended to kpc scales. Their line ratios satisify the criteria of Low-ionization Nuclear Emission-line Regions (LINERs) on all major line-ratio diagnostic diagrams. However, their ionization mechanism has been hotly debated. Multiple ionization mechanisms can produce the same kind of line ratios, including photoionization by a central AGN, photoionization by hot evolved stars (e.g. post-AGB stars), collisional ionization by fast shocks, photoionization by hot X-ray emitting gas, and conductive heating or turbulent mixing. Therefore, determining the ionization mechanism requires other information.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2015 

References

Yan, , Renbin, , Blanton, , & Michael, R., 2012 Astrophys. J., 747, 61Google Scholar