Near-infrared Tully-Fisher Relation Research Articles

Deep NIR photometry of H i galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance

Current studies of the peculiar velocity flow field in the Local Universe are limited by either the lack of detection or accurate photometry for galaxies at low Galactic latitudes. The contribution to the dynamics of the Local Group of the largely unknown mass distribution in this 'Zone of Avoidance' remains controversial. We present here the results of a pilot project to obtain deep near infrared (NIR) observations of galaxies detected in the systematic Parkes deep HI survey of the ZoA - 578 galaxies with recession velocities out to 6000 km/s were observed with the 1.4m InfraRed Survey Facility SIRIUS camera providing J, H and K_s imaging ~2 mag deeper than 2MASS. After star-subtraction, the resulting isophotal magnitudes and inclinations of ZoA galaxies are of sufficient accuracy (magnitude errors under 0.1 mag even at high extinction) to ultimately be used to determine cosmic flow fields "in" the ZoA via the NIR Tully-Fisher relation. We further used the observed NIR colours to assess the ratio of the true extinction to the DIRBE/IRAS extinction deep into the dust layers of the Milky Way. The derived ratio was found to be 0.87 across the HIZOA survey region with no significant variation with Galactic latitude or longitude. This value is in excellent agreement with the completely independently derived factor of 0.86 by Schlafly & Finkbeiner based on Sloan data far away from the Milky Way.

Is the far border of the Local Void expanding?

According to models of evolution in the hierarchical structure formation scenarios, voids of galaxies are expected to expand. The Local Void (LV) is the closest large void, and it provides a unique opportunity to test observationally such an expansion. It has been found that the Local Group, which is on the border of the LV, is running away from the void center at ~260 km/s. In this study we investigate the motion of the galaxies at the far-side border of the LV to examine the presence of a possible expansion. We selected late-type, edge-on spiral galaxies with radial velocities between 3000 km/s and 5000 km/s, and carried out HI 21 cm line and H-band imaging observations. The near-infrared Tully-Fisher relation was calibrated with a large sample of galaxies and carefully corrected for Malmquist bias. It was used to compute the distances and the peculiar velocities of the LV sample galaxies. Among the 36 sample LV galaxies with good quality HI line width measurements, only 15 galaxies were selected for measuring their distances and peculiar velocities, in order to avoid the effect of Malmquist bias. The average peculiar velocity of these 15 galaxies is found to be -419+208-251 km/s, which is not significantly different from zero. Due to the intrinsically large scatter of Tully-Fisher relation, we cannot conclude whether there is a systematic motion against the center of the LV for the galaxies at the far-side boundary of the void. However, our result is consistent with the hypothesis that those galaxies at the far-side boundary have an average velocity of ~260 km/s equivalent to what is found at the position of the Local Group.

Bulge and Halo Kinematics Across the Hubble Sequence

The correlation between the maximum rotational velocity of the disk (vm) and the central stellar velocity dispersion of the bulge (σ0) offers insights into the relationship between the halo and the bulge. We have assembled integrated H I line widths and central stellar velocity dispersions to study the vm-σ0 relation for 792 galaxies spanning a broad range of Hubble types. Contrary to earlier studies based on much smaller samples, we find that the vm-σ0 relation exhibits significant intrinsic scatter and that its zero point varies systematically with galaxy morphology, bulge-to-disk ratio, and light concentration, as expected from basic dynamical considerations. Nucleated but bulgeless late-type spiral galaxies depart significantly from the vm-σ0 relation. While these results render questionable any attempt to supplant the bulge with the halo as the fundamental determinant of the central black hole mass in galaxies, the observed distribution of vm/σ0, which depends on both the density profile and kinematic structure of the galaxy, offers a useful constraint on galaxy formation models. With the aid of a near-infrared Tully-Fisher relation, we identify a population of otherwise normal, luminous galaxies that have exceptionally low values of vm/σ0. We argue that a significant fraction of the H I gas in these kinematically anomalous objects is dynamically unrelaxed, having been acquired externally either through capture from tidal interactions or through cold accretion from the intergalactic medium.

Galactosynthesis: halo histories, star formation and discs

We investigate the effects of a variety of ingredients that must enter into a realistic model for disc galaxy formation, focusing primarily on the Tully–Fisher (TF) relation and its scatter in several wavebands. In particular, we employ analytic distributions for halo formation redshifts and halo spins, empirical star formation rates and initial mass functions, realistic stellar populations, and chemical evolution of the gas. Our main findings are as follows. (a) The slope, normalization and scatter of the TF relation across various wavebands are determined largely by the parent halo properties as dictated by the initial conditions, but are also influenced by star formation in the disc. (b) TF scatter in this model is due primarily to the spread in formation redshifts. The scatter can be measurably reduced by chemical evolution, and also by the weak anticorrelation between peak height and spin. (c) Multiwavelength constraints can be important in distinguishing between models that appear to fit the TF relation in I or K. (d) Assuming passive disc evolution, successful models seem to require that the bulk of disc formation cannot occur too early (z>2–3) or too late (z<0.2), and are inconsistent with high values of Ω0. (e) A simple, realistic model with the above ingredients, and fewer free parameters than typical semi-analytic models, can reasonably reproduce the observed z=0 TF relation in all bands (B, R, I and K), as well as the observed B-band surface brightness–magnitude relation. In such a model, the near-infrared TF relation at z=1 is similar to that at z=0, while bluer bands show a markedly steeper TF slope at high redshift, consistent with limited current data. The remarkable agreement with observations suggests that the amount of gas that is expelled or poured into a disc galaxy may be small (though small fluctuations might serve to align B-band predictions better with observations), and that the specific angular momentum of the baryons should roughly equal that of the halo; there is little room for angular momentum transfer. In Appendix A we present analytic fits to stellar population synthesis models.

DENIS Observations of Multibeam Galaxies in the Zone of Avoidance

AbstractRoughly 25% of the optical extragalactic sky is obscured by the dust and stars of our Milky Way. Dynamically important structures might still lie hidden in this zone. Various surveys are presently being employed to uncover the galaxy distribution in the Zone of Avoidance (ZOA), but all suffer from (different) limitations and selection effects. We illustrate the promise of using a multi-wavelength approach for extragalactic large-scale studies behind the ZOA, i.e. a combination of three surveys, optical, systematic blind HI and near-infrared (NIR), which will allow the mapping of the peculiar velocity field in the ZOA through the NIR Tully–Fisher relation. In particular, we present here the results of cross-identifying HI-detected galaxies with the DENIS NIR survey, and the use of NIR colours to determine foreground extinctions.

THE NEAR-INFRARED TULLY-FISHER RELATION: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE COMA AND ABELL 400 CLUSTERS

ABSTRACT We have started a large project to study the near-infrared luminosity-linewidth (Tully-Fisher) relation using H- and I-band surface photometry of spiral galaxies. A preliminary study of 20 spirals in the Coma and Abell 400 clusters (both at ~7000 km s-1) is presented. The near-infrared images have been used to derive accurate inclinations and total magnitudes, and rotational line widths are measured from high quality 21 cm Arecibo data. The scatter in the Coma Tully-Fisher plot is found to be 0.19 mag in the H-band and 0.20 mag in the I-band for a set of 13 galaxies, if we assume that they are all at the same distance. The deviation of the Coma galaxies from the best-fit Tully-Fisher relation is correlated with their redshift, indicating that some of the galaxies are not bound to the cluster. Indeed, if we treat all the galaxies in the Coma sample as undergoing free Hubble expansion, the Tully-Fisher scatter drops to 0.12 mag and 0.13 mag for the H- and I-band datasets, respectively. The Abell 400 sample is best fit by a common distance model, yielding a scatter of 0.12 mag for seven galaxies in H using a fixed Tully-Fishr slope (derived from our Coma H sample). We are in the process of studying cluster and field spirals out to ~10,000 km s-1 in order to calibrate the near-infrared Tully-Fisher relation and will apply it to more nearby galaxies to measure the peculiar velocity field (and hence the mass distribution) in the local Universe.