No Arabic abstract
We present the properties of a large sample (12,282) of nearly face-on low surface brightness (LSB) disk galaxies selected from the main galaxy sample of SDSS-DR4. These properties include B-band central surface brightness mu_0(B), scale lengths h, integrated magnitudes, colors, and distances D. This sample has mu_0(B) values from 22 to 24.5 mag arcsec^{-2} with a median value of 22.42 mag arcsec^{-2}, and disk scale lengths ranging from 2 to 19 kpc. They are quite bright with M_B taking values from -18 to -23 mag with a median value of -20.08 mag. There exist clear correlations between logh and M_B, logh and logD, logD and M_B. However, no obvious correlations are found between mu_0(B) and logh, colors etc. The correlation between colors and logh is weak even though it exists. Both the optical-optical and optical-NIR color-color diagrams indicate that most of them have a mixture of young and old stellar populations. They also satisfy color-magnitude relations, which indicate that brighter galaxies tend generally to be redder. The comparison between the LSBGs and a control sample of nearly face-on disk galaxies with higher surface brightness (HSB) with mu_0(B) from 18.5 to 22 mag arcsec^{-2} show that, at a given luminosity or distance, the observed LSB galaxies tend to have larger scale lengths. These trends could be seen gradually by dividing both the LSBGs and HSBGs into two sub-groups according to surface brightness. A volume-limited sub-sample was extracted to check the incompleteness of surface brightness. The only one of the property relations having an obvious change is the relation of logh versus mu_0(B), which shows a correlation in this sub-sample.
A large sample of low surface brightness (LSB) disk galaxies is selected from SDSS with B-band central surface brightness mu_0(B) from 22 to 24.5 mag arcsec^(-2). Some of their properties are studied, such as magnitudes, surface brightness, scalelengths, colors, metallicities, stellar populations, stellar masses and multiwavelength SEDs from UV to IR etc. These properties of LSB galaxies have been compared with those of the galaxies with higher surface brightnesses. Then we check the variations of these properties following surface brightness.
We study the spectroscopic properties of a large sample of Low Surface Brightness galaxies (LSBGs) (with B-band central surface brightness mu0(B)>22 mag arcsec^(-2)) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 (SDSS-DR4) main galaxy sample. A large sample of disk-dominated High Surface Brightness galaxies (HSBGs, with mu0(B)<22 mag arcsec^(-2)) are also selected for comparison simultaneously. To study them in more details, these sample galaxies are further divided into four subgroups according to mu0(B) (in units of mag arcsec^(-2)): vLSBGs (24.5-22.75),iLSBGs (22.75-22.0), iHSBGs (22.0-21.25), and vHSBGs (<21.25). The diagnostic diagram from spectral emission-line ratios shows that the AGN fractions of all the four subgroups are small (<9%). The 21,032 star-forming galaxies with good quality spectroscopic observations are further selected for studying their dust extinction, strong-line ratios, metallicities and stellar mass-metallicities relations. The vLSBGs have lower extinction values and have less metal-rich and massive galaxies than the other subgroups. The oxygen abundances of our LSBGs are not as low as those of the HII regions in LSBGs studied in literature, which could be because our samples are more luminous, and because of the different metallicity calibrations used. We find a correlation between 12+log(O/H) and mu0(B) for vLSBGs, iLSBGs and iHSBGs but show that this could be a result of correlation between mu0(B) and stellar mass and the well-known mass-metallicity relation. This large sample shows that LSBGs span a wide range in metallicity and stellar mass, and they lie nearly on the stellar mass vs. metallicity and N/O vs. O/H relations of normal galaxies. This suggests that LSBGs and HSBGs have not had dramatically different star formation and chemical enrichment histories.
We select a large volume-limited sample of low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs, 2,021) to investigate their statistical properties and their differences from high surface brightness galaxies (HSBGs, 3,639) in details. The distributions of stellar masses of LSBGs and HSBGs are nearly the same and they have the same median values. Thus this volume-limited sample have good completeness and further remove the effect of stellar masses on their other properties when we compare LSBGs and HSBGs. We found that LSBGs tend to have lower stellar metallicities, and lower effect dust attenuations indicating that they have lower dust, than HSBGs. The LSBGs have relatively higher stellar mass-to-light ratios, higher gas fraction, lower star forming rates (SFRs), and lower specific SFRs than HSBGs. Moreover, with the decreasing surface brightness, gas fraction increase, while the SFRs and specific SFRs decrease rapidly for the sample galaxies. This could mean that the star formation histories between LSBGs and HSBGs are different, HSBGs may have stronger star forming activities than LSBGs.
Near-infrared (NIR) K images of a sample of five low surface brightness disc galaxies (LSBGs) were combined with optical data, with the aim of constraining their star formation histories. Both red and blue LSBGs were imaged to enable comparison of their stellar populations. For both types of galaxy strong colour gradients were found, consistent with mean stellar age gradients. Very low stellar metallicities were ruled out on the basis of metallicity-sensitive optical-NIR colours. These five galaxies suggest that red and blue LSBGs have very different star formation histories and represent two independent routes to low B band surface brightness. Blue LSBGs are well described by models with low, roughly constant star formation rates, whereas red LSBGs are better described by a `faded disc scenario.
Using optical/near-IR broadband photometry together with Halpha emission line data, we attempt to constrain the star formation histories, ages, total stellar masses and stellar mass-to-light ratios for a sample of extremely blue low surface brightness galaxies. We find that, under standard assumptions about the stellar initial mass function, the Halpha equivalent widths of these objects appear inconsistent with recently suggested scenarios including constant or increasing star formation rates over cosmological time scales. In a critical assessment of the prospects of obtaining ages from integrated broadband photometry, we conclude that even with near-IR data, the ages are poorly constrained and that current observations cannot rule out the possibility that these objects formed as recently as 1-2 Gyr ago. Methods which could potentially improve the age estimates are discussed. The stellar masses of these galaxies are inferred to lie below 10^10 solar masses. This, in combination with low ages, could constitute a problem for current hierarchical models of galaxy formation, which predict objects of this mass to form predominantly early in the history of the universe. The possibility to use the ages of the bluest low surface brightness galaxies as a test of such models is demonstrated.