Flattening and truncation of stellar discs in edge-on spiral galaxies

By M. Kregel, P. C. van der Kruit, Richard de Grijs. 2002

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We analyse the global structure of the old stellar discs in 34 edge-on spiral galaxies. The radial and vertical exponential scale parameters of the discs are obtained by applying an improved two-dimensional decomposition technique to our I-band photometry. We find a clear increase in the disc scaleheight with maximum rotational velocity, in accordance with observations of the stellar velocity dispersions in galaxy discs. The range and maximum of the intrinsic flattening of the disc light seem to increase with both maximum rotational velocity and total H I mass. We use the disc flattening to estimate the disc contribution to the maximum rotational velocity, resulting in an average of 57 ± 22 per cent. The disc light distributions are further investigated for the presence of radial truncations. We find that the radial light distributions of at least 20 spirals are truncated, corresponding to 60 per cent of the sample. For small scalelength spirals, which are the most numerous in the local Universe, the results suggest that the average ratio of disc truncation radius to disc scalelength is at least four.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2793e2aaaca37329b73386b56a24a8f9cc8061e3

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Citations in the corpus

HIGH-RESOLUTION DARK MATTER DENSITY PROFILES OF THINGS DWARF GALAXIES: CORRECTING FOR NONCIRCULAR MOTIONS (2008, methodology): “This h/z0 = 5 ratio as determined in van der Kruit & Searle (1981) is based on a small number of galaxies but has, for a much larger sample, been confirmed by Kregel et al. (2002), who find h/z0 = 4.8 ± 1.3.”
Broadband Imaging of a Large Sample of Irregular Galaxies (2005, background): “This type of behavior has also been seen in the outer parts of spirals (van der Kruit & Shostak 1982; Shostak & Van der Kruit 1984; de Grijs et al. 2001; Kregel et al. 2002; Pohlen et al. 2002; Kregel & van der Kruit 2004), including 1 low-luminosity spiral (Simon et al. 2003).”
The DiskMass Survey VII. The distribution of luminous and dark matter in spiral galaxies (2013, background): “Since I is well known from photometry, and the relation between hz and the disk scale length (hR) has been statistically determined from studies of edge-on spiral galaxies (e.g., de Grijs & van der Kruit 1996; Kregel et al. 2002, see also the compilation in Fig.”
Equilibrium Disk-Bulge-Halo Models for the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies (2005, methodology): “Observations of edge-on spiral galaxies can be used to constrain the vertical scale height and disk truncation parameters (Kregel et al. 2002).”
THICK DISKS OF EDGE-ON GALAXIES SEEN THROUGH THE SPITZER SURVEY OF STELLAR STRUCTURE IN GALAXIES (S4G): LAIR OF MISSING BARYONS? (2011, background): “…if the flares were so strong to appear as truncations, the heating through encounters would fail to explain the existence of thick disks in some galaxies, since thick disks are ubiquitous and truncations, although very common, do not appear in all galaxies (Kregel et al. 2002; van der Kruit 2007).”
SPARC: MASS MODELS FOR 175 DISK GALAXIES WITH SPITZER PHOTOMETRY AND ACCURATE ROTATION CURVES (2016, methodology): “Since zd cannot be directly measured in face-on galaxies, the DMS statistically estimated the disk scale height using the empirical correlation between Rd and zd, calibrated using NIR photometry of edge-on galaxies (Kregel et al. 2002).”
SIMULATION OF THE COSMIC EVOLUTION OF ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR HYDROGEN IN GALAXIES (2009, result): “This trend was also detected in other data samples (e.g. data from Kregel et al. 2002 shown in Obreschkow & Rawlings 2009).”
Structural Parameters of Thin and Thick Disks in Edge-on Disk Galaxies (2005, methodology): “Following the technique of Kregel et al. (2002), we weight each pixel by the inverse of the model surface brightness distribution at that pixel.”
THE DISKMASS SURVEY. I. OVERVIEW (2010, background): “…is preferred for a number of reasons, but principally because little is known empirically about the shape of disk stellar velocity ellipsoids (SVE), while disk scale-heights are statistically well-determined from studies of edge-on galaxies (e.g., de Grijs & van der Kruit 1996, Kregel et al. 2002).”
Old stellar Galactic disc in near-plane regions according to 2MASS: Scales, cut-off, flare and warp (2002, background): “Kregel et al. (2002) finds that 60% of the spiral galaxies are truncated, although he also finds that the truncation is beyond 4.4 hR for galaxies with hR < 4 kpc; so probably, if there existed a cutoff in our Galaxy, it would not be detected in R < 4.5 hR.”
Cosmic evolution of the atomic and molecular gas contents of galaxies (2011, background): “We estimateh⋆ by assuming that it is proportional to the radial exponential scale length of the disk, as observed in local spiral galaxies, withReff/h⋆ ≈ 7.3±1.2 (Kregel et al. 2002).”