THINGS: THE H i NEARBY GALAXY SURVEY

By F. Walter, E. Brinks, E. D. Blok, F. Bigiel. 2008

1,045 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present “The H i Nearby Galaxy Survey (THINGS),” a high spectral (⩽5.2 km s−1) and spatial (∼6″) resolution survey of H i emission in 34 nearby galaxies obtained using the NRAO Very Large Array (VLA). The overarching scientific goal of THINGS is to investigate fundamental characteristics of the interstellar medium (ISM) related to galaxy morphology, star formation, and mass distribution across the Hubble sequence. Unique characteristics of the THINGS database are the homogeneous sensitivity as well as spatial and velocity resolution of the H i data, which is at the limit of what can be achieved with the VLA for a significant number of galaxies. A sample of 34 objects at distances 2 ≲ D ≲ 15 Mpc (resulting in linear resolutions of ∼100 to 500 pc) are targeted in THINGS, covering a wide range of star formation rates (∼10−3 to 6 M☉ yr−1), total H i masses MHI (0.01 to 14 × 109 M☉), absolute luminosities MB (−11.5 to −21.7 mag), and metallicities (7.5 to 9.2 in units of 12+log[O/H]). We describe the setup of the VLA observations, the data reduction procedures, and the creation of the final THINGS data products. We present an atlas of the integrated H i maps, the velocity fields, the second moment (velocity dispersion) maps and individual channel maps of each THINGS galaxy. The THINGS data products are made publicly available through a dedicated webpage. Accompanying THINGS papers (in this issue of the Astronomical Journal) address issues such as the small-scale structure of the ISM, the (dark) matter distribution in THINGS galaxies, and the processes leading to star formation.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/effebf52d7ce305b95932b3e8b7da8230fb9d0a8

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. R. Somerville
4. Volker Springel
5. R. Dav'e
6. A. Dekel
7. Mark R. Krumholz
8. T. Naab

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. Volker Springel
4. R. Somerville
5. Simon D. M. White
6. A. Dekel
7. R. Dav'e
8. T. Naab

Citations in the corpus

• An Overview of the Dwarf Galaxy Survey (2013, background): “…the youngest stellar components, Hα showing the distribution of the ionized gas, IRAC 3.6 μm shows the evolved stellar component, IRAC 8 μm the PAHs and/or hot dust component, MIPS 24 μm (Bendo et al. 2012b) tracing the warm dust component, and 21 cm HI, from the THINGS survey (Walter et al. 2008).”
• THE PdBI ARCSECOND WHIRLPOOL SURVEY (PAWS). I. A CLOUD-SCALE/MULTI-WAVELENGTH VIEW OF THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM IN A GRAND-DESIGN SPIRAL GALAXY (2013, methodology): “For comparison to the atomic gas we use the robust weighted intensity map from THINGS (The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey; Walter et al. 2008).”
• REGULARITY UNDERLYING COMPLEXITY: A REDSHIFT-INDEPENDENT DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTINUOUS VARIATION OF GALAXY-SCALE MOLECULAR GAS PROPERTIES IN THE MASS-STAR FORMATION RATE PLANE (2013, neutral): “Normal Galaxies: Low-redshift CO-detections The HERACLES survey (Leroy et al. 2008, 2009, 2013) targeted the CO(J=2→1) transition in nearby (D. 15Mpc) THINGS galaxies (Walter et al. 2008) with the IRAM 30m single-dish telescope.”
• A z = 0 Multiwavelength Galaxy Synthesis. I. A WISE and GALEX Atlas of Local Galaxies (2019, background): “This is also about the resolution of a typical VLA Hi map (e.g., Walter et al. 2008) and near the diffraction limit of Herschel near the peak of the IR SED.”
• THE ATOMIC-TO-MOLECULAR TRANSITION IN GALAXIES. II: H i AND H2 COLUMN DENSITIES (2008, background): “…and a similar dependence of molecular fraction on pressure are also seen in newer surveys such as the HERA CO-Line Extragalactic Survey (HERACLES) that cover a broader range of galaxy properties at higher spatial resolution (Walter et al. 2008; Bigiel et al. 2008; Leroy et al. 2008, hereafter L08).”
• THIRD-EPOCH MAGELLANIC CLOUD PROPER MOTIONS. II. THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD ROTATION FIELD IN THREE DIMENSIONS (2013, background): “Similarly, Oh et al. (2011a) placed a sample of dwarf galaxies from the HI Nearby Galaxy Survey (THINGS; Walter et al. 2008), a high velocity-resolution HI survey of dwarf galaxies, on the BTF relation.”
• SIMULATION OF THE COSMIC EVOLUTION OF ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR HYDROGEN IN GALAXIES (2009, methodology): “To find a similar expression for Σdiskstars(r), we analyzed the stellar surface densities Σstars(r) of the 12 THINGS galaxies mentioned before.”
• EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT STAR FORMATION IN THE OUTER DISKS OF NEARBY GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “THINGS consists of high-resolution, high-sensitivity H I data for 34 nearby galaxies obtained with the NRAO8 VLA.”
• HIGH-RESOLUTION ROTATION CURVES AND GALAXY MASS MODELS FROM THINGS (2008, methodology): “′′5; see Walter et al. 2008) in the corresponding cube.”
• A constant dark matter halo surface density in galaxies (2009, methodology): “…in the local Universe and DDO 47, a very well studied dwarf spiral (Gentile et al. 2005) by χ2 modelling their kinematics; (c) the THINGS sample (Walter et al. 2008): disk galaxies with high quality RCs that have been mass modelled in two independent ways, 1) by the standard χ2 technique and…”
• The MOG weak field approximation and observational test of galaxy rotation curves (2013, methodology): “This work made use of THINGS, ”The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey” (Walter et al. 2008).”
• Cuspy No More: How Outflows Affect the Central Dark Matter and Baryon Distribution in Lambda CDM Galaxies (2012, methodology): “Ongoing surveys such as ANGST (Dalcanton et al. 2009), THINGS (Walter et al. 2008) and LITTLE THINGS c© 2002 RAS, MNRAS 000, 1–12 (Zhang et al. 2011, Hunter et al 07) are providing data on the central mass distribution of field galaxies with Vpeak < 60 km/sec and provide new, strong constraints on…”
• The Milky Way’s bright satellites as an apparent failure of ΛCDM (2011, background): “Although observing galaxies at these masses over cosmological volumes is essentially impossible at present, THINGS (Walter et al. 2008) has observed 34 nearby galaxies (D < 15 Mpc) in HI with high spatial resolution.”
• VERY HIGH GAS FRACTIONS AND EXTENDED GAS RESERVOIRS IN z = 1.5 DISK GALAXIES (2009, background): “Gas spectra in local galaxies show double horn profiles but the emission at zero velocity never falls below 50% of the peaks (e.g., Walter et al. 2008).”
• Towards a more realistic population of bright spiral galaxies in cosmological simulations (2013, background): “All of these galaxies do show extended gas disks, as do observed disk galaxies (e.g. Walter et al. 2008).”
• THE BARYONIC TULLY–FISHER RELATION OF GAS-RICH GALAXIES AS A TEST OF ΛCDM AND MOND (2011, methodology): “We can use the recent observations of THINGS galaxies (Walter et al. 2008) to provide an independent estimate of MH2/MHI .”
• Star formation in semi-analytic galaxy formation models with multiphase gas (2015, background): “…star formation and multi-phase (Hi and H2) gas in reasonably large samples of nearby galaxies, e.g. from the THINGS (The HI nearby galaxy survey; Walter et al. 2008) combined with BIMA SONG (BIMA survey of Nearby Galaxies; Helfer et al. 2003) and HERACLES (HERA COLine Extragalactic Survey;…”
• THE CO-TO-H2 CONVERSION FACTOR AND DUST-TO-GAS RATIO ON KILOPARSEC SCALES IN NEARBY GALAXIES (2012, methodology): “This includes HI from “The HI Nearby Galaxies Survey” (THINGS; Walter et al. 2008), 12CO J=(2−1) from the “HERA CO Line Emission Survey” (Leroy et al. 2009a, 2013, HERACLES;)and far-infrared dust emission from“Key Insights into Nearby Galaxies: A Far-Infrared Survey with Herschel” (KINGFISH; Kennicu”