No Arabic abstract
We describe Spitzer images of a sample of dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies, using the high sensitivity and spatial resolution to explore the morphologies of dust in these galaxies. For the starbursting dwarf UGC 10445, we present a complete infrared spectral energy distribution and modeling of its individual dust components. We find that its diffuse cold (T~19K) dust component extends beyond its near-infrared disk and speculate that the most plausible source of heating is ultraviolet photons from starforming complexes. We find that the mass of T~19K dust in UGC 10445 is surprisingly large, with a lower limit of 3 x 10^6 M_solar. We explore the implications of having such a high dust content on the nature and evolution of the galaxy.
We investigate in detail the hypothesis that low surface brightness galaxies (LSB) differ from ordinary galaxies simply because they form in halos with large spin parameters. We compute star formation rates using the Schmidt law, assuming the same gas infall dependence on surface density as used in models of the Milky Way. We build stellar population models, predicting colours, spectra, and chemical abundances. We compare our predictions with observed values of metallicity and colours for LSB galaxies and find excellent agreement with all observables. In particular, integrated colours, colour gradients, surface brightness and metallicity match very well to the observed values of LSBs for models with ages larger than 7 Gyr and high values ($lambda > 0.05$) for the spin parameter of the halos. We also compute the global star formation rate (SFR) in the Universe due to LSBs and show that it has a flatter evolution with redshift than the corresponding SFR for normal discs. We furthermore compare the evolution in redshift of $[Zn/H]$ for our models to those observed in Damped Lyman $alpha$ systems by scite{Pettini+97} and show that Damped Lyman $alpha$ systems abundances are consistent with the predicted abundances at different radii for LSBs. Finally, we show how the required late redshift of collapse of the halo may constrain the power spectrum of fluctuations.
Massive low surface brightness galaxies have disk central surface brightnesses at least one magnitude fainter than the night sky, but total magnitudes and masses that show they are among the largest galaxies known. Like all low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies, massive LSB galaxies are often in the midst of star formation yet their stellar light has remained diffuse, raising the question of how star formation is proceeding within these galaxies. We have undertaken a multi-wavelength study to clarify the structural parameters and stellar and gas content of these enigmatic systems. The results of these studies, which include HI, CO, optical, near UV, and far UV images of the galaxies will provide the most in depth study done to date of how, when, and where star formation proceeds within this unique subset of the galaxy population.
Giant Low Surface Brightness (GLSB) galaxies are amongst the most massive spiral galaxies that we know of in our Universe. Although they fall in the class of late type spiral galaxies, their properties are far more extreme. They have very faint stellar disks that are extremely rich in neutral hydrogen gas but low in star formation and hence low in surface brightness. They often have bright bulges that are similar to those found in early type galaxies. The bulges can host low luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) that have relatively low mass black holes. GLSB galaxies are usually isolated systems and are rarely found to be interacting with other galaxies. In fact many GLSB galaxies are found under dense regions close to the edges of voids. These galaxies have very massive dark matter halos that also contribute to their stability and lack of evolution. In this paper we briefly review the properties of this unique class of galaxies and conclude that both their isolation and their massive dark matter halos have led to the low star formation rates and the slower rate of evolution in these galaxies.
We present deep, pointed $^{12}$CO($J=2-1$) observations of three late-type LSB galaxies. The beam-size was small enough that we could probe different environments (HI maximum, HI mininum, star forming region) in these galaxies. No CO was found at any of the positions observed. We argue that the implied lack of molecular gas is real and not caused by conversion factor effects. The virtual absence of a molecular phase may explain the very low star formation rates in these galaxies.
We present an updated investigation of the relation between large scale disk circular velocity, v_c, and bulge velocity dispersion, sigma_c. New bulge velocity dispersions are measured for a sample of 11 low surface brightness (LSB) and 7 high surface brightness (HSB) spiral galaxies for which v_c is known from published optical or HI rotation curves. We find that, while LSB galaxies appear to define the upper envelope of the region occupied by HSB galaxies (having relatively larger v_c for any given sigma_c), the distinction between LSB and HSB galaxies in the v_c-sigma_c plane becomes less pronounced for sigma_c <= 80 km/s. We conclude that either the scatter of the v_c-sigma_c relation is a function of v_c (and hence galaxy mass) or that the character of the v_c-sigma_c relation changes at v_c ~ 80 km/s. Some inplications of our findings are discussed.