The faint outer regions of the Pegasus dwarf irregular galaxy: a much larger and undisturbed galaxy

Abstract

We investigate the spatial extent and structure of the Pegasus dwarf irregular galaxy using deep, wide-field, multicolour CCD photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and new deep HI observations. We study an area of ~0.6 square degrees centred on the Pegasus dwarf that was imaged by SDSS. Using effective filtering in colour-magnitude space we reduce the contamination by foreground Galactic field stars and increase significantly the contrast in the outer regions of the Pegasus dwarf. Our extended surface photometry, reaches down to a surface brightness magnitude mu_r~32 mag/sq.arcsec. It reveals a stellar body with a diameter of ~8 kpc that follows a Sersic surface brightness distribution law, which is composed of a significantly older stellar population than that observed in the ~2 kpc main body. The galaxy is at least five times more extended than listed in NED. The faint extensions of the galaxy are not equally distributed around its circumference; the north-west end is more jagged than the south-east end. We also identified a number of stellar concentrations, possibly stellar associations, arranged in a ring around the main luminous body. New HI observations were collected at the Arecibo Observatory as part of the ALFALFA survey. They reveal an HI distribution somewhat elongated in RA and about 0.3 deg. wide, with the region of highest column density coincident with the luminous galaxy. The HI rotation curve shows a solid-body rotation behaviour, with opposite ends differing by 15 km/s. There is a stream to lower velocities about 5 arcmin from the centre of the galaxy. We were able to measure ugriz colours in a number of apertures using the SDSS data and compared these with predictions of evolutionary synthesis models. (abridged)