No Arabic abstract
We present MeerKAT observations of neutral hydrogen gas (HI) in the nearby merger remnant NGC 1316 (Fornax A), the brightest member of a galaxy group which is falling into the Fornax cluster. We find HI on a variety of scales, from the galaxy centre to its large-scale environment. For the first time we detect HI at large radii (70 - 150 kpc in projection), mostly distributed on two long tails associated with the galaxy. Gas in the tails dominates the HI mass of NGC 1316: 7e+8 Msun -- 14 times more than in previous observations. The total HI mass is comparable to the amount of neutral gas found inside the stellar body, mostly in molecular form. The HI tails are associated with faint optical tidal features thought to be the remnant of a galaxy merger occurred a few billion years ago. They demonstrate that the merger was gas-rich. During the merger, tidal forces pulled some gas and stars out to large radii, where we now detect them in the form of optical tails and, thanks to our new data, HI tails; while torques caused the remaining gas to flow towards the centre of the remnant, where it was converted into molecular gas and fuelled the starburst revealed by the galaxys stellar populations. Several of the observed properties of NGC 1316 can be reproduced by a ~ 10:1 merger between a dominant, gas-poor early-type galaxy and a smaller, gas-rich spiral occurred 1 - 3 Gyr ago, likely followed by subsequent accretion of satellite galaxies.
We present atomic hydrogen (HI) observations using the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope along the lines-of-sight to 27 low surface brightness (LSB) dwarf galaxy candidates discovered in optical searches around M101. We detect HI reservoirs in 5 targets and place stringent upper limits on the remaining 22, implying that they are gas poor. The distances to our HI detections range from 7 Mpc --150 Mpc, demonstrating the utility of wide-bandpass HI observations as a follow-up tool. The systemic velocities of 3 detections are consistent with that of the NGC~5485 group behind M101, and we suggest that our 15 non-detections with lower distance limits from the optical are associated with and have been stripped by that group. We find that the gas richnesses of confirmed M101 satellites are broadly consistent with those of the Milky Way satellites, as well as with those of satellites around other hosts of comparable mass, when survey completeness is taken into account. This suggests that satellite quenching and gas stripping proceeds similarly around halos of similar mass, in line with theoretical expectations.
This review summarizes recent studies of the cold neutral hydrogen gas associated with galaxies probed via the HI 21-cm absorption line. HI 21-cm absorption against background radio-loud quasars is a powerful tool to study the neutral gas distribution and kinematics in foreground galaxies from kilo-parsec to parsec scales. At low redshifts (z<0.4), it has been used to characterize the distribution of high column density neutral gas around galaxies and study the connection of this gas with the galaxys optical properties. The neutral gas around galaxies has been found to be patchy in distribution, with variations in optical depth observed at both kilo-parsec and parsec scales. At high redshifts (z>0.5), HI 21-cm absorption has been used to study the neutral gas in metal or Lyman-alpha absorption-selected galaxies. It has been found to be closely linked with the metal and dust content of the gas. Trends of various properties like incidence, spin temperature and velocity width of HI 21-cm absorption with redshift have been studied, which imply evolution of cold gas properties in galaxies with cosmic time. Upcoming large blind surveys of HI 21-cm absorption with next generation radio telescopes are expected to determine accurately the redshift evolution of the number density of HI 21-cm absorbers per unit redshift and hence understand what drives the global star formation rate density evolution.
CIZA J2242.8+5301 ($z = 0.188$, nicknamed Sausage) is an extremely massive ($M_{200}sim 2.0 times 10^{15}M_odot$ ), merging cluster with shock waves towards its outskirts, which was found to host numerous emission-line galaxies. We performed extremely deep Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope HI observations of the Sausage cluster to investigate the effect of the merger and the shocks on the gas reservoirs fuelling present and future star formation (SF) in cluster members. By using spectral stacking, we find that the emission-line galaxies in the Sausage cluster have, on average, as much HI gas as field galaxies (when accounting for the fact cluster galaxies are more massive than the field galaxies), contrary to previous studies. Since the cluster galaxies are more massive than the field spirals, they may have been able to retain their gas during the cluster merger. The large HI reservoirs are expected to be consumed within $sim0.75-1.0$ Gyr by the vigorous SF and AGN activity and/or driven out by the out-flows we observe. We find that the star-formation rate in a large fraction of H$alpha$ emission-line cluster galaxies correlates well with the radio broad band emission, tracing supernova remnant emission. This suggests that the cluster galaxies, all located in post-shock regions, may have been undergoing sustained SFR for at least 100 Myr. This fully supports the interpretation proposed by Stroe et al. (2015) and Sobral et al. (2015) that gas-rich cluster galaxies have been triggered to form stars by the passage of the shock.
The early-type galaxy NGC 1316 hosts about 10^7 solar masses of dust within a central radius of 5 kpc. These prominent dust structures are believed to have an external origin, which is also a popular interpretation for other dusty early-type galaxies. We use archival Hubble Space Telescope/ACS data to construct colour maps that delineate the dust pattern in detail, and we compare these data with maps constructed with data from MUSE of the VLT at the European Southern Observatory. Twelve MUSE pointings in wide field mode form a mosaic of the central 3.3x2.4. We use the tool PyParadise to fit the stellar population. We use the residual emission lines and the residual interstellar absorption NaI D-lines, and we measure line strengths, the velocity field, and the velocity dispersion field. The emission lines resemble LINER lines, with [NII] being the strongest line everywhere. Ionising sources are plausibly the post-asymptotic giant branch stars of the old or intermediate-age stellar population. There is a striking match between the dust structures, ionised gas, and atomic gas distributions, the last of which is manifested by interstellar absorption residuals of the stellar NaI D-lines. In the dust-free regions, the interstellar NaI D-lines appear in emission, which is indicative of a galactic wind. The velocity field of the ionised gas (and thus of the dust) is characterised by small-scale turbulent movements that indicate short lifetimes. At the very centre, a bipolar velocity field of the ionised gas is observed, which we interpret as an outflow. We identify a strongly inclined gaseous dusty disc along the major axis of NGC1316. A straight beam of ionised gas with a length of about 4 kpc emanates from the centre. Our findings are strongly suggestive of a dusty outflow. Nuclear outflows may be important dust-producing machines in galaxies. (Abridged)
We present the analysis of the diffuse, low column density HI environment of 18 MHONGOOSE galaxies. We obtained deep observations with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, and reached down to a 3sigma column density detection limit of NHI=6.3x10^{17} cm^{-2} over a 20 km/s linewidth. We analyze the environment around these galaxies, with a focus on HI gas that reaches column densities below NHI=10^{19} cm^{-2}. We calculate the total amount of HI gas in and around the galaxies revealing that nearly all of these galaxies contained excess HI outside of their disks. We quantify the amount of diffuse gas in the maps of each galaxy, defined by HI gas with column densities below 10^{19} cm^{-2}, and find a large spread in percentages of diffuse gas. However, by binning the percentage of diffuse HI into quarters, we find that the bin with the largest number of galaxies is the lowest quartile (0-25% diffuse HI). We identified several galaxies which may be undergoing gas accretion onto the galaxy disk using multiple methods of analysis, including azimuthally averaging column densities beyond the disk, and identifying structure within our integrated intensity (Moment 0) maps. We measured HI mass outside the disks of most of our galaxies, with rising cumulative flux even at large radii. We also find a strong correlation between the fraction of diffuse gas in a galaxy and its baryonic mass, and test this correlation using both Spearman and Pearson correlation coefficients. We see evidence of a dark matter halo mass threshold of M_{halo}~10^{11.1} msun{} in which galaxies with high fractions of diffuse HI all reside below. It is in this regime in which cold-mode accretion should dominate. Finally, we suggest a rotation velocity of v_{rot}~80 kms as an upper threshold to find diffuse gas-dominated galaxies.