Spectroscopic characterisation of the stellar content of ultra diffuse galaxies

TL;DR

This study provides a detailed spectroscopic analysis of five Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma cluster, revealing their old, metal-poor stellar populations and dwarf-like kinematic properties, shedding light on their formation and evolution.

Contribution

It offers one of the most comprehensive spectroscopic characterizations of UDGs to date, including velocities, star formation histories, and stellar populations, using deep optical data.

Findings

UDGs are confirmed as cluster members with dwarf-like rotation properties.

Stellar populations are old (~7 Gyr), metal-poor, and alpha-enhanced.

Star formation ceased around 2 Gyr ago, indicating environmental quenching.

Abstract

Understanding the peculiar properties of Ultra Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs) via spectroscopic analysis is a challenging task requiring very deep observations and exquisite data reduction. In this work we perform one of the most complete characterisations of the stellar component of UDGs to date using deep optical spectroscopic data from OSIRIS at GTC. We measure radial and rotation velocities, star formation histories (SFH) and mean population parameters, such as ages and metallicities, for a sample of five UDG candidates in the Coma cluster. From the radial velocities, we confirm the Coma membership of these galaxies. We find that their rotation properties, if detected at all, are compatible with dwarf-like galaxies. The SFHs of the UDG are dominated by old (~ 7 Gyr), metal-poor ([M/H] ~ -1.1) and alpha-enhanced ([Mg/Fe] ~ 0.4) populations followed by a smooth or episodic decline which halted ~ 2 Gyr ago, possibly a sign of cluster-induced quenching. We find no obvious correlation between individual SFH shapes and any UDG morphological properties. The recovered stellar properties for UDGs are similar to those found for DDO44, a local UDG analogue resolved into stars. We conclude that the UDGs in our sample are extended dwarfs whose properties are likely the outcome of both internal processes, such as bursty SFHs and/or high-spin haloes, as well as environmental effects within the Coma cluster.