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Browsing by Author "Edmondson, Edward M."

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    Galaxy Zoo 2: detailed morphological classifications for 304 122 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    (Oxford University Press, 2013-09-22) Willett, Kyle W.; Lintott, Chris J.; Bamford, Steven P.; Masters, Karen L.; Simmons, Brooke D.; Casteels, Kevin R. V.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Fortson, Lucy F.; Kaviraj, Sugata; Keel, William C.; Melvin, Thomas; Nichol, Robert C.; Raddick, M. Jordan; Schawinski, Kevin; Simpson, Robert J.; Skibba, Ramin A.; Smith, Arfon M.; Thomas, Daniel; University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; University of Oxford; University of Nottingham; University of Portsmouth; Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC); University of Barcelona; University of Hertfordshire; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Johns Hopkins University; Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich; University of California System; University of California San Diego
    We present the data release for Galaxy Zoo 2 (GZ2), a citizen science project with more than 16 million morphological classifications of 304 122 galaxies drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Morphology is a powerful probe for quantifying a galaxy's dynamical history; however, automatic classifications of morphology (either by computer analysis of images or by using other physical parameters as proxies) still have drawbacks when compared to visual inspection. The large number of images available in current surveys makes visual inspection of each galaxy impractical for individual astronomers. GZ2 uses classifications from volunteer citizen scientists to measure morphologies for all galaxies in the DR7 Legacy survey with m(r) > 17, in addition to deeper images from SDSS Stripe 82. While the original GZ2 project identified galaxies as early-types, late-types or mergers, GZ2 measures finer morphological features. These include bars, bulges and the shapes of edge-on disks, as well as quantifying the relative strengths of galactic bulges and spiral arms. This paper presents the full public data release for the project, including measures of accuracy and bias. The majority (greater than or similar to 90 per cent) of GZ2 classifications agree with those made by professional astronomers, especially for morphological T-types, strong bars and arm curvature. Both the raw and reduced data products can be obtained in electronic format at ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="http://data.galaxyzoo.org" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">http://data.galaxyzoo.org.
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    Galaxy Zoo: bars in disc galaxies
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) Masters, Karen L.; Nichol, Robert C.; Hoyle, Ben; Lintott, Chris; Bamford, Steven P.; Edmondson, Edward M.; Fortson, Lucy; Keel, William C.; Schawinski, Kevin; Smith, Arfon M.; Thomas, Daniel; University of Portsmouth; University of Barcelona; University of Oxford; University of Nottingham; University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Yale University
    We present first results from Galaxy Zoo 2, the second phase of the highly successful Galaxy Zoo project (www.galaxyzoo.org). Using a volume-limited sample of 13 665 disc galaxies (0.01 < z < 0.06 and M-r < -19.38), we study the fraction of galaxies with bars as a function of global galaxy properties like colour, luminosity and bulge prominence. Overall, 29.4 +/- 0.5 per cent of galaxies in our sample have a bar, in excellent agreement with previous visually classified samples of galaxies (although this overall fraction is lower than that measured by automated bar-finding methods). We see a clear increase in the bar fraction with redder (g - r) colours, decreased luminosity and in galaxies with more prominent bulges, to the extent that over half of the red, bulge-dominated disc galaxies in our sample possess a bar. We see evidence for a colour bimodality for our sample of disc galaxies, with a 'red sequence' that is both bulge and bar dominated, and a 'blue cloud' which has little, or no, evidence for a (classical) bulge or bar. These results are consistent with similar trends for barred galaxies seen recently both locally and at higher redshift, and with early studies using the RC3. We discuss these results in the context of internal (secular) galaxy evolution scenarios and the possible links to the formation of bars and bulges in disc galaxies.
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    Galaxy Zoo: dust in spiral galaxies star
    (Oxford University Press, 2010) Masters, Karen L.; Nichol, Robert; Bamford, Steven; Mosleh, Moein; Lintott, Chris J.; Andreescu, Dan; Edmondson, Edward M.; Keel, William C.; Murray, Phil; Raddick, M. Jordan; Schawinski, Kevin; Slosar, Anze; Szalay, Alexander S.; Thomas, Daniel; Vandenberg, Jan; University of Portsmouth; University of Nottingham; University of Sussex; Leiden University; Leiden University - Excl LUMC; University of Oxford; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Johns Hopkins University; Yale University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
    We investigate the effect of dust on spiral galaxies by measuring the inclination dependence of optical colours for 24 276 well-resolved Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxies visually classified via the Galaxy Zoo project. We find clear trends of reddening with inclination which imply a total extinction from face-on to edge-on of 0.7, 0.6, 0.5 and 0.4 mag for the ugri passbands (estimating 0.3 mag of extinction in z band). We split the sample into 'bulgy' (early-type) and 'discy' (late-type) spirals using the SDSS fracdeV (or f(DeV)) parameter and show that the average face-on colour of 'bulgy' spirals is redder than the average edge-on colour of 'discy' spirals. This shows that the observed optical colour of a spiral galaxy is determined almost equally by the spiral type (via the bulge-disc ratio and stellar populations), and reddening due to dust. We find that both luminosity and spiral type affect the total amount of extinction, with discy spirals at M-r similar to -21.5 mag having the most reddening - more than twice as much as both the lowest luminosity and most massive, bulge-dominated spirals. An increase in dust content is well known for more luminous galaxies, but the decrease of the trend for the most luminous has not been observed before and may be related to their lower levels of recent star formation. We compare our results with the latest dust attenuation models of Tuffs et al. We find that the model reproduces the observed trends reasonably well but overpredicts the amount of u-band attenuation in edge-on galaxies. This could be an inadequacy in the Milky Way extinction law (when applied to external galaxies), but more likely indicates the need for a wider range of dust-star geometries. We end by discussing the effects of dust on large galaxy surveys and emphasize that these effects will become important as we push to higher precision measurements of galaxy properties and their clustering.
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    Galaxy Zoo: the environmental dependence of bars and bulges in disc galaxies
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) Skibba, Ramin A.; Masters, Karen L.; Nichol, Robert C.; Zehavi, Idit; Hoyle, Ben; Edmondson, Edward M.; Bamford, Steven P.; Cardamone, Carolin N.; Keel, William C.; Lintott, Chris; Schawinski, Kevin; University of Arizona; University of Portsmouth; Case Western Reserve University; Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC); University of Barcelona; Helsinki Institute of Physics; University of Helsinki; University of Nottingham; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Brown University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of Oxford; Yale University
    We present an analysis of the environmental dependence of bars and bulges in disc galaxies, using a volume-limited catalogue of 15 810 galaxies at z < 0.06 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with visual morphologies from the Galaxy Zoo 2 project. We find that the likelihood of having a bar, or bulge, in disc galaxies increases when the galaxies have redder (optical) colours and larger stellar masses, and observe a transition in the bar and bulge likelihoods at M*= 2 x 10(10) M?, such that massive disc galaxies are more likely to host bars and bulges. In addition, while some barred and most bulge-dominated galaxies are on the red sequence of the colourmagnitude diagram, we see a wider variety of colours for galaxies that host bars. We use galaxy clustering methods to demonstrate statistically significant environmental correlations of barred, and bulge-dominated, galaxies, from projected separations of 150 kpc h-1 to 3 Mpc h-1. These environmental correlations appear to be independent of each other: i.e. bulge-dominated disc galaxies exhibit a significant barenvironment correlation, and barred disc galaxies show a bulgeenvironment correlation. As a result of sparse sampling tests our sample is nearly 20 times larger than those used previously we argue that previous studies that did not detect a barenvironment correlation were likely inhibited by small number statistics. We demonstrate that approximately half of the barenvironment correlation can be explained by the fact that more massive dark matter haloes host redder disc galaxies, which are then more likely to have bars; this fraction is estimated to be 50 +/- 10 per cent from a mock catalogue analysis and 60 +/- 5 per cent from the data. Likewise, we show that the environmental dependence of stellar mass can only explain a smaller fraction (25 +/- 10 per cent) of the barenvironment correlation. Therefore, a significant fraction of our observed environmental dependence of barred galaxies is not due to colour or stellar mass dependences, and hence must be due to another galaxy property, such as gas content, or to environmental influences. Finally, by analysing the projected clustering of barred and unbarred disc galaxies with halo occupation models, we argue that barred galaxies are in slightly higher mass haloes than unbarred ones, and some of them (approximately 25 per cent) are satellite galaxies in groups. We discuss the implications of our results on the effects of minor mergers and interactions on bar formation in disc galaxies.