Outflows in Sodium Excess Objects

  • Park, Jongwon (Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University) ;
  • Jeong, Hyunjin (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) ;
  • Yi, Sukyoung K. (Department of Astronomy, Yonsei University)
  • Published : 2015.04.10

Abstract

van Dokkum and Conroy revisited the strong Na I lines at $8200{\AA}$ found in some giant elliptical galaxies and interpreted it as evidence for bottom-heavy initial mass function. Jeong et al. later found a lot of galaxies showing strong Na D doublet absorption line at $5900{\AA}$ (Na D excess objects; a.k.a. NEOs) and showed that their origins can be different for different types of galaxies. While the excess in Na D seems related with interstellar medium in late-type galaxies, smooth-looking early-type NEOs suggest no compelling sign of ISM contributions. To test this finding, we measured doppler shift in the Na D line. We hypothesized that ISM is more likely to show blueshift due to outflow caused by either star formation or AGN activities. In order to measure the doppler shift, we tried both Gaussian and Voigt functions to fit each galaxy spectrum near the Na D line. We found that Voigt profiles reproduce the shapes of the Na D lines markedly better. Many of late-type NEOs clearly show blueshift in their Na D lines, which is consistent with the former interpretation that the Na D excess found in them is related with star formation-caused gas outflow. On the contrary, early-type NEOs do not show any notable doppler component, which is also consistent with the interpretation of Jeong et al. that the Na D excess in early-type NEOs is likely not related with ISM activities but purely stellar in origin.

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