The structure of galactic disks - Studying late-type spiral galaxies using SDSS

By M. Pohlen, I. Institute, U. D. O. Physics, Astronomy, U. Nottingham. 2006

291 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using imaging data from the SDSS survey, we present the g' and r' radial stellar light distribution of a complete sample of similar to 90 face-on to intermediate inclined, nearby, late-type (Sb-Sdm) spiral galaxies. The surface brightness profiles are reliable (1s uncertainty less than 0.2 mag) down to mu similar to 27 mag/square". Only similar to 10% of all galaxies have a normal/standard purely exponential disk down to our noise limit. The surface brightness distribution of the rest of the galaxies is better described as a broken exponential. About 60% of the galaxies have a break in the exponential profile between similar to 1.5-4.5 times the scalelength followed by a downbending, steeper outer region. Another similar to 30% shows also a clear break between similar to 4.0-6.0 times the scalelength but followed by an upbending, shallower outer region. A few galaxies have even a more complex surface brightness distribution. The shape of the profiles correlates with Hubble type. Downbending breaks are more frequent in later Hubble types while the fraction of upbending breaks rises towards earlier types. No clear relation is found between the environment, as characterised by the number of neighbours, and the shape of the profiles of the galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6e268d8c1d93756d1a717167a49781720162cbee

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Citations in the corpus

THE OUTER DISKS OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES. I. SURFACE-BRIGHTNESS PROFILES OF BARRED GALAXIES (2007, methodology): “(Pohlen & Trujillo 2006 also found examples of composite profiles in their late-type sample.)”
The ATLAS3D project XV: benchmark for early-type galaxies scaling relations from 260 dynamical models: mass-to-light ratio, dark matter, fundamental plane and mass plane (2012, background): “Given the variety in the outer profiles of spiral galaxies (van der Kruit & Searle 1981; Pohlen & Trujillo 2006) it is unclear how profiles should be extrapolated.”
A Search for Extended Ultraviolet Disk (XUV-Disk) Galaxies in the Local Universe (2007, methodology): “Some of our sample galaxies were studied optically by Pohlen & Trujillo (2006).”
The formation of disc galaxies in a ΛCDM universe (2010, background): “At large radii in all simulations, rd shifts to ∼ 2 kpc. Disk breaking is a well observed phenomenon (Pohlen & Trujillo 2006) correlated with a dip in the star formation rate, and has been studied numerically by Roškar et al. (2008).”
Physical properties and environments of nearby galaxies (2009, background): “The census of Pohlen & Trujillo (2006) finds that while about 56% exhibit a downward break (either a classical sharp break or one described by a steeper exponential profile), about 24% exhibit a shallower exponential profile on the outside (e.g. Erwin, Beckman & Pohlen 2005), and 10% exhibit no…”
Red Clump Stars from LAMOST II: the outer disc of the Milky Way (2017, background): “Nevertheless, Pohlen & Trujillo (2006) classified several hundred external galaxies by their surface luminosity distributions and found that the outer discs show three different types of profiles: exponential, down-bending and up-bending.”
EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT STAR FORMATION IN THE OUTER DISKS OF NEARBY GALAXIES (2010, background): “Star formation at large galactocentric radii will affect how chemical enrichment varies across a galaxy (Gil de Paz et al. 2007b) and plays a critical role in determining the location and form of the break in the exponential stellar disk (Pohlen & Trujillo 2006).”
Beyond Inside-Out Growth: Formation and Evolution of Disk Outskirts (2007, result): “This has been confirmed by an abundance of recent data (e.g., Pohlen et al. 2000, 2002; Bland-Hawthorn et al. 2005; Erwin et al. 2005; Pohlen & Trujillo 2006, hereafter PT06).”
The age–metallicity structure of the Milky Way disc using APOGEE (2017, background): “External disk galaxies are also observed to have such a truncation in their stellar density profiles (e.g. Pohlen & Trujillo 2006).”
Mapping the Milky Way with LAMOST– III. Complicated spatial structure in the outer disc (2018, background): “In the case of external galaxies, Pohlen & Trujillo (2006) also suggested that interaction with nearby companions may be responsible for the complicated features in some of the Type II+III galaxies.”
Evolution of galactic discs: multiple patterns, radial migration, and disc outskirts (2012, background): “For the classical truncated surface-brightness profiles the breaks occur at smaller normalized radii in late-type galaxies than early-type galaxies (Pohlen and Trujillo, 2006).”
THE DISKMASS SURVEY. I. OVERVIEW (2010, background): “Typically this was because a light profile showed evidence for inner breaks (type I and II luminosity profiles; Freeman 1970) and/or outer breaks (Pohlen & Trujillo 2006).”
The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic, and Integrated Properties (2016, background): “Such “breaks” are common (Pohlen & Trujillo 2006) but “continuously exponential” disks are also known, and the stars can extend to the observed edge of the HI disk (Bland-Hawthorn et al. 2005, Irwin et al. 2005, Ellis & Bland-Hawthorn 2007).”
Misaligned angular momentum in hydrodynamic cosmological simulations: warps, outer discs and thick discs (2010, unknown): “Journal compilation C© 2010 RAS Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/408/2/783/1025052 by guest on 29 July 2018 1979; Kregel, van der Kruit & de Grijs 2002; Pohlen et al. 2002; Pohlen & Trujillo 2006).”
Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): survey diagnostics and core data release (2010, background): “However, relatively little is known as to how the light profile of galaxies truncates at very faint isophotes with all variants seen (Pohlen & Trujillo 2006).”
FORMING REALISTIC LATE-TYPE SPIRALS IN A ΛCDM UNIVERSE: THE ERIS SIMULATION (2011, background): “The “downbending” observed in Eris’ brightness exponential profile at about 4 disk scale lengths appears to be characteristic of late-type spirals (Pohlen & Trujillo 2006).”