Bibcode
Nipoti, Carlo; Fraternali, Filippo; Iorio, Giuliano; Di Teodoro, Enrico; Read, Justin I.; Battaglia, Giuseppina
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 466, Issue 4, p.4159-4192
Advertised on:
4
2017
Citations
115
Refereed citations
99
Description
Dwarf irregular galaxies (dIrrs) are the smallest stellar systems with
extended H i discs. The study of the kinematics of such discs is a
powerful tool to estimate the total matter distribution at these very
small scales. In this work, we study the H i kinematics of 17 galaxies
extracted from the 'Local Irregulars That Trace Luminosity Extremes, The
H i Nearby Galaxy Survey' (LITTLE THINGS). Our approach differs
significantly from previous studies in that we directly fit 3D models
(two spatial dimensions plus one spectral dimension) using the software
3Dbarolo, fully exploiting the information in the H i data
cubes. For each galaxy, we derive the geometric parameters of the H i
disc (inclination and position angle), the radial distribution of the
surface density, the velocity-dispersion (σv) profile
and the rotation curve. The circular velocity (Vc), which
traces directly the galactic potential, is then obtained by correcting
the rotation curve for the asymmetric drift. As an initial application,
we show that these dIrrs lie on a baryonic Tully-Fisher relation in
excellent agreement with that seen on larger scales. The final products
of this work are high-quality, ready-to-use kinematic data
(Vc and σv) that we make publicly available.
These can be used to perform dynamical studies and improve our
understanding of these low-mass galaxies.
Related projects
Galaxy Evolution in the Local Group
Galaxy formation and evolution is a fundamental Astrophysical problem. Its study requires “travelling back in time”, for which there are two complementary approaches. One is to analyse galaxy properties as a function of red-shift. Our team focuses on the other approach, called “Galactic Archaeology”. It is based on the determination of galaxy
Matteo
Monelli