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Probing Galactic Outskirts with Dragonfly

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2017

Roberto Abraham ,
Allison Merritt ,
Jielai Zhang ,
Pieter van Dokkum ,
Charlie Conroy ,
Shany Danieli  and
Lamiya Mowla
Roberto Abraham
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto
Allison Merritt
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Yale University
Jielai Zhang
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
Pieter van Dokkum
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Yale University
Charlie Conroy
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Shany Danieli
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Yale University Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Department of Physics, Yale University Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics
Lamiya Mowla
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Yale University
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Abstract

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We describe the challenges inherent to low surface brightness imaging and present some early results from the Dragonfly Nearby Galaxies survey. Wide field, ultra-low surface brightness imaging (μg > 31 mag arcsec−2) of the first eight galaxies in the survey reveals a rich variety in the distribution of stars in the outskirts of luminous nearby galaxies. The mean stellar halo mass fraction is 0.009 ± 0.005 with a peak-to-peak scatter of a factor of > 100. Some galaxies in the sample feature strongly structured halos resembling that of M31, but three of the eight galaxies have halos that are completely undetected in our data. We conclude that spiral galaxies as a class exhibit a rich variety in stellar halo properties, implying that their assembly histories have been highly non-uniform. While the outskirts of some galaxies are dominated by halos with the rich substructures predicted by numerical simulations, in other cases the outermost parts of galaxies are simply the extrapolated smooth starlight from enormous stellar disks that closely trace neutral gas morphology out to around 20 scale lengths.

Keywords

galaxies: spiralsgalaxies: halosgalaxies: stellar contenttechniques: photometric
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 11 , Symposium S321: Formation and Evolution of Galaxy Outskirts , March 2016 , pp. 137 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2017 

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