The development of astronomy and space science in Africa has grown significantly over the past few years. These advancements make the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals more achievable, and open up the possibility of new beneficial collaborations. Until recently, South Africa with the Southern African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) and Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO), Namibia with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS), and Morocco, Algeria and Egypt with their optical observatories, were almost the only astronomy references in Africa. Also, South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Algeria were the only four African countries with established satellite programmes. In recent years, many other countries began research activities in astronomy and space science (A&SS), starting with institutional development, human capacity development (HCD), scientific research and networking. The African Union (AU) took important steps in promoting the development of A&SS on a continental scale for improving some of the main socioeconomic and environmental challenges that Africa is facing, and for achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). This Comment aims to provide an overview of the current status and future prospects of A&SS in Africa
arXiv:1302.6719v1 ; Luminosity functions are one of the most important observational clues when studying galaxy evolution over cosmic time. In this paper we present the X-ray luminosity functions for X-ray detected AGN in the SXDS and GWS fields. The limiting fluxes of our samples are 9.0 ×10-15 and 4.8 ×10-16 erg cm-2 s-1 in the 0.5-7.0 keV band in the two fields, respectively. We carried out analysis in three X-ray bands and in two redshift intervals up to z ≤ 1.4. Moreover, we derive the luminosity functions for different optical morphologies and X-ray types. We confirm strong luminosity evolution in all three bands, finding the most luminous objects at higher redshift. However, no signs of density evolution are found in any tested X-ray band. We obtain similar results for compact and early-type objects. Finally, we observe the >Steffen effect>, where X-ray type-1 sources are more numerous at higher luminosities in comparison with type-2 sources. ; This research has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the grant AYA2011-29517-C03-01. MP, IM, and JM acknowledge Junta de Andalucía and MINECO through projects PO8-TIC-03531 and AYA2010-15169. We acknowledge support from the Faculty of the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC). JIGS acknowledge financial support from the MINECO under project AYA2008-06311-C02-02 and AYA2011-29517-C03-02. JG acknowledges support from the MINECO through AYA2009-10368 project. The CEFCA is funded by the Fondo de Inversiones de Teruel, supported by both the Government of Spain (50%) and the regional Government of Aragón (50%). This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación through the PNAYA, under grants AYA2006-14056 and th-rough the ICTS 2009-14. ; Peer Reviewed
We present ELDAR, a new method that exploits the potential of medium- and narrow-band filter surveys to securely identify active galactic nuclei (AGN) and determine their redshifts. Our methodology improves on traditional approaches by looking for AGN emission lines expected to be identified against the continuum, thanks to the width of the filters. To assess its performance, we apply ELDAR to the data of the ALHAMBRA (Advance Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift Astronomical) survey, which covered an effective area of 2.38 deg2 with 20 contiguous medium-band optical filters down to F814W ≃ 24.5. Using two different configurations of ELDAR in which we require the detection of at least two and three emission lines, respectively, we extract two catalogues of type-I AGN. The first is composed of 585 sources (79 per cent of them spectroscopically unknown) down to F814W = 22.5 at zphot > 1, which corresponds to a surface density of 209 deg−2. In the second, the 494 selected sources (83 per cent of them spectroscopically unknown) reach F814W = 23 at zphot > 1.5, for a corresponding number density of 176 deg−2. Then, using samples of spectroscopically known AGN in the ALHAMBRA fields, for the two catalogues we estimate a completeness of 73 per cent and 67 per cent, and a redshift precision of 1.01 per cent and 0.86 per cent (with outliers fractions of 8.1 per cent and 5.8 per cent). At z > 2, where our selection performs best, we reach 85 per cent and 77 per cent completeness and we find no contamination from galaxies. ; We acknowledge support from FITE (Fondos de Inversiones de Teruel), Grupos de Aragon E96 and E103, and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through projects AYA2016-76682C3-1-P, AYA2015-66211-C2-1, AYA2015-66211-C2-2, AYA201342227-P and AYA2012-30789. This work was supported by FCT (ref. UID/FIS/04434/2013) through national funds and by FEDER through COMPETE2020 (ref. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007672). JC acknowledges support from the Fundacion Bancaria Ibercaja for developing this research. BA has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 656354. MP acknowledges financial supports from the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute (ESSTI) under the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST). IM acknowledges support from an FCT postdoctoral grant (ref. SFRH/BPD/95578/2013). ; Peer Reviewed
Based on observations collected at the German-Spanish Astronomical Center, Calar Alto, jointly operated by the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA) at Heidelberg and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC).-- et al. ; [Context]: Most observational results on the high redshift restframe UV-bright galaxies are based on samples pinpointed using the so-called dropout technique or Ly-α selection. However, the availability of multifilter data now allows the dropout selections to be replaced by direct methods based on photometric redshifts. In this paper we present the methodology to select and study the population of high redshift galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey data. [Aims]: Our aim is to develop a less biased methodology than the traditional dropout technique to study the high redshift galaxies in ALHAMBRA and other multifilter data. Thanks to the wide area ALHAMBRA covers, we especially aim at contributing to the study of the brightest, least frequent, high redshift galaxies. [Methods]: The methodology is based on redshift probability distribution functions (zPDFs). It is shown how a clean galaxy sample can be obtained by selecting the galaxies with high integrated probability of being within a given redshift interval. However, reaching both a complete and clean sample with this method is challenging. Hence, a method to derive statistical properties by summing the zPDFs of all the galaxies in the redshift bin of interest is introduced. [Results]: Using this methodology we derive the galaxy rest frame UV number counts in five redshift bins centred at z = 2.5,3.0,3.5,4.0, and 4.5, being complete up to the limiting magnitude at mUV(AB) = 24, where mUV refers to the first ALHAMBRA filter redwards of the Ly-α line. With the wide field ALHAMBRA data we especially contribute to the study of the brightest ends of these counts, accurately sampling the surface densities down to mUV(AB) = 21-22. [Conclusions]: We show that using the zPDFs it is easy to select a very clean sample of high redshift galaxies. We also show that it is better to do statistical analysis of the properties of galaxies using a probabilistic approach, which takes into account both the incompleteness and contamination issues in a natural way. ; K. Viironen acknowledges the Juan de la Cierva fellowship of the Spanish government. We acknowledge funding from the FITE (Fondos de Inversiones de Teruel) and support from the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER funds through grants AYA2012-30789, AYA2006-14056, AYA 2003-00128, AYA 2006-01325, AYA 2007-62190, AYA2010-15169, AYA2010-22111-C03-02 and AYA2013-48623-C2-2. We also acknowledge Junta de Andalucía through the grant TIC 114 and Generalitat Valenciana projects Prometeo 2009/064 and PROMETEOII/2014/060, and the financial support from the Aragón Government through the Research Group E103. I. Oteo acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) in the form of Advanced Grant, cosmicism. A. J. Cenarro acknowledges the Ramón y Cajal fellowship of the Spanish government. M. Povic acknowledges financial support from JAE-Doc program of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), cofunded by the European Social Fund. ; Peer Reviewed
We present a technique that permits the analysis of stellar population gradients in a relatively low-cost way compared to integral field unit (IFU) surveys. We developed a technique to analyze unresolved stellar populations of spatially resolved galaxies based on photometric multi-filter surveys. This technique allows the analysis of vastly larger samples and out to larger galactic radii. We derived spatially resolved stellar population properties and radial gradients by applying a centroidal Voronoi tessellation and performing a multicolor photometry spectral energy distribution fitting. This technique has been successfully applied to a sample of 29 massive (M > 10M) early-type galaxies at z < 0.3 from the ALHAMBRA survey. We produced detailed 2D maps of stellar population properties (age, metallicity, and extinction), which allow us to identify galactic features. Radial structures were studied, and luminosity-weighted and mass-weighted gradients were derived out to 2-3.5 R. We find that the spatially resolved stellar population mass, age, and metallicity are well represented by their integrated values. We find the gradients of early-type galaxies to be on average flat in age (⇠log Age = 0.02 ± 0.06 dex/R) and negative in metallicity (⇠[Fe/H] = -0.09 ± 0.06 dex/R). Overall,the extinction gradients are flat (⇠A = -0.03 ± 0.09 mag/R) with a wide spread. These results are in agreement with previous studies that used standard long-slit spectroscopy, and with the most recent IFU studies. According to recent simulations, these results are consistent with a scenario where early-type galaxies were formed through major mergers and where their final gradients are driven by the older ages and higher metallicity of the accreted systems. We demonstrate the scientific potential of multi-filter photometry to explore the spatially resolved stellar populations of local galaxies and confirm previous spectroscopic trends from a complementary technique. ; This work has been mainly funded by the FITE (Fondos de Inversiones de Teruel) and the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER funds through grants AYA2012-30789 and AYA2015-66211-C2-1-P. We also acknowledge financial support from the projects AYA2014-57490-P and AYA2016-77846-P, and from the Aragón Government through the Research Group E103. B.A. has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 656354. M.P. acknowledges financial supports from the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute (ESSTI) under the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), and from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through research projects AYA2013-42227-P and AYA2016-76682-C3-1-P (AEI/FEDER, UE). ; Peer Reviewed
