THE SURVEY OF H I IN EXTREMELY LOW-MASS DWARFS (SHIELD)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55105 (United States)
We present first results from the Survey of H I in Extremely Low-mass Dwarfs (SHIELD), a multi-configuration Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) study of the neutral gas contents and dynamics of galaxies with H I masses in the 10{sup 6}-10{sup 7} M{sub sun} range detected by the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey. We describe the survey motivation and concept demonstration using Very Large Array imaging of six low-mass galaxies detected in early ALFALFA data products. We then describe the primary scientific goals of SHIELD and present preliminary EVLA and WIYN 3.5 m imaging of the 12 SHIELD galaxies. With only a few exceptions, the neutral gas distributions of these extremely low-mass galaxies are centrally concentrated. In only one system have we detected H I column densities higher than 10{sup 21} cm{sup -2}. Despite this, the stellar populations of all of these systems are dominated by blue stars. Further, we find ongoing star formation as traced by H{alpha} emission in 10 of the 11 galaxies with H{alpha} imaging obtained to date. Taken together these results suggest that extremely low-mass galaxies are forming stars in conditions different from those found in more massive systems. While detailed dynamical analysis requires the completion of data acquisition, the most well-resolved system is amenable to meaningful position-velocity analysis. For AGC 749237, we find well-ordered rotation of 30 km s{sup -1} at {approx}40'' distance from the dynamical center. At the adopted distance of 3.2 Mpc, this implies the presence of a {approx}>1 x 10{sup 8} M{sub sun} dark matter halo and a baryon fraction {approx}<0.1.
- OSTI ID:
- 21565456
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 739, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/739/1/L22; ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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