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We report the discovery of a ~500 kpc HI extension southwest of the Virgo Cluster HI-rich pair NGC 4532/DDO 137, detected as part of the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) Survey. The feature is the longest and most massive HI tail structure so far found in the Virgo Cluster and, at 1.8 Mpc from M87, the most distant from the main concentration of the intracluster medium. The structure is spatially and spectrally separated into two ridges and is defined by diffuse emission and discrete clumps of mass 2.5 - 6.8 x 10**7 solar masses. All emission is blue-shifted with respect to the NGC 4532/DDO 137 pair emission. Including diffuse emission, the structure has a total mass of up to 7 x 10**8 solar masses, equivalent to ~10% of the systems HI mass. Optical R-band imaging finds no counterparts to a level of 26.5 mag arcsec**-2. The characteristics of the structure appear most consistent with a tidal origin.
HI observations of the Virgo Cluster pair NGC 4532/DDO 137, conducted as part of the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey (ALFALFA), reveal an HI feature extending ~500 kpc to the southwest. The structure has a total mass of up to 7 x 10^8 solar masses, equivalent to 10% of the pair HI mass. Optical R imaging reveals no counterparts to a level of 26.5 magnitudes per square arcsec. The structure is likely the result of galaxy harassment.
We present the catalog of ~31500 extragalactic HI line sources detected by the completed ALFALFA survey out to z < 0.06 including both high signal-to-noise ratio (> 6.5) detections and ones of lower quality which coincide in both position and recessional velocity with galaxies of known redshift. We review the observing technique, data reduction pipeline, and catalog construction process, focusing on details of particular relevance to understanding the catalogs compiled parameters. We further describe and make available the digital HI line spectra associated with the catalogued sources. In addition to the extragalactic HI line detections, we report nine confirmed OH megamasers and ten OH megamaser candidates at 0.16 < z < 0.22 whose OH line signals are redshifted into the ALFALFA frequency band. Because of complexities in data collection and processing associated with the use of a feed-horn array on a complex single-dish antenna in the terrestrial radio frequency interference environment, we also present a list of suggestions and caveats for consideration by users of the ALFALFA extragalactic catalog for future scientific investigations.
We present the third installment of HI sources extracted from the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA extragalactic survey. This dataset continues the work of the Virgo ALFALFA catalog. The catalogs and spectra published here consist of data obtained during the 2005 and 2006 observing sessions of the survey. The catalog consists of 578 HI detections within the range 11h 36m < R.A.(J2000) < 13h 52m and +08 deg < Dec.(J2000) < +12 deg, and cz_sun < 18000 km/s. The catalog entries are identified with optical counterparts where possible through the examination of digitized optical images. The catalog detections can be classified into three categories: (a) detections of high reliability with S/N > 6.5; (b) high velocity clouds in the Milky Way or its periphery; and (c) signals of lower S/N which coincide spatially with an optical object and known redshift. 75% of the sources are newly published HI detections. Of particular note is a complex of HI clouds projected between M87 and M49 that do not coincide with any optical counterparts. Candidate objects without optical counterparts are few. The median redshift for this sample is 6500 km/s and the cz distribution exhibits the local large scale structure consisting of Virgo and the background void and the A1367-Coma supercluster regime at cz_sun ~7000 km/s. Position corrections for telescope pointing errors are applied to the dataset by comparing ALFALFA continuum centroid with those cataloged in the NRAO VLA Sky Survey. The uncorrected positional accuracy averages 27 arcsec ~(21 arcsec ~median) for all sources with S/N > 6.5 and is of order ~21 arcsec ~(16 arcsec ~median) for signals with S/N > 12. Uncertainties in distances toward the Virgo cluster can affect the calculated HI mass distribution.
We present the first installment of HI sources extracted from the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) extragalactic survey, initiated in 2005. Sources have been extracted from 3-D spectral data cubes and then examined interactively to yield global HI parameters. A total of 730 HI detections are catalogued within the solid angle 11h44m < R.A.(J2000) < 14h00m and +12deg < Dec.(J2000) < +16deg, and redshift range -1600 kms < cz < 18000 kms. In comparison, the HI Parkes All-Sky Survey (HIPASS) detected 40 HI signals in the same region. Optical counterparts are assigned via examination of digital optical imaging databases. ALFALFA HI detections are reported for three distinct classes of signals: (a) detections, typically with S/N > 6.5; (b) high velocity clouds in the Milky Way or its periphery; and (c) signals of lower S/N (to ~ 4.5) which coincide spatially with an optical object of known similar redshift. Although this region of the sky has been heavily surveyed by previous targeted observations based on optical flux-- or size-- limited samples, 69% of the extracted sources are newly reported HI detections. The resultant positional accuracy of HI sources is 20 (median). The median redshift of the sample is ~7000 kms and its distribution reflects the known local large scale structure including the Virgo cluster. Several extended HI features are found in the vicinity of the Virgo cluster. A small percentage (6%) of HI detections have no identifiable optical counterpart, more than half of which are high velocity clouds in the Milky Way vicinity; the remaining 17 objects do not appear connected to or associated with any known galaxy.
We report the results of an HI blind survey of 80deg^2 of the Virgo cluster, based on the 08deg < delta < 16 deg strip of ALFALFA, the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey. 187 HI sources of high significance are found providing a complete census of HI sources in this region of the Virgo cluster (-1000<cz<3000 km/s) with M_HI > 10^7.5-8 M_sun. 156/187 (83%) sources are identified with optical galaxies from the Virgo Cluster Catalogue (Binggeli et al. 1985), all but 8 with late-type galaxies. Ten sources are not associated with optical galaxies and were found to correspond to tidally-disrupted systems (see Kent et al. 2007 and Haynes, Giovanelli and Kent 2007). The remaining 21 (11%) are associated with galaxies that are not listed in the Virgo Cluster Catalogue. For all sources with an optical counterpart in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we analyzed i-band SDSS plates to measure optical structural parameters. We find that in the Virgo cluster: i) HI inhabits galaxies that are structurally similar to ordinary late-type galaxies; ii) their HI content can be predicted from their optical luminosity; iii) low surface brightness galaxies have low optical luminosity and contain small quantities of neutral hydrogen; iv) low surface brightness, massive Malin1 type galaxies are comfortably rare objects (less than 0.5%); v) there are no dark-galaxies with HI masses M_HI > 10^7.5-8 M_sun; vi) less than 1% of early-type galaxies contain neutral hydrogen with M_HI>10^7.5-8 M_sun (di Serego Alighieri et al. 2007).