分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: The extraplanar diffuse ionized gas (eDIG) represents the cool/warm ionized gas reservoir around galaxies. We present a spatial analysis of H$\alpha$ images of 22 nearby edge-on spiral galaxies from the CHANG-ES sample (the eDIG-CHANGES project), taken with the APO 3.5m telescope, in order to study their eDIG. We conduct an exponential fit to the vertical intensity profiles of the sample galaxies, of which 16 can be decomposed into a thin disk plus an extended thick disk component. The median value of the scale height (h) of the extended component is $1.13\pm 0.14$ kpc. We find a tight sublinear correlation between h and the SFR. Moreover, the offset of individual galaxies from the best-fit SFR-h relation shows significant anti-correlation with SFR_SD. This indicates that galaxies with more intense star formation tend to have disproportionately extended eDIG. Combined with data from the literature, we find that the correlations between the eDIG properties and the galaxies' properties extend to broader ranges. We further compare the vertical extension of the eDIG to multi-wavelength measurements of other CGM phases. We find the eDIG to be slightly more extended than the neutral gas (HI 21-cm line), indicating the existence of some extended ionizing sources. Most galaxies have an X-ray scale height smaller than the h, suggesting that the majority of the X-ray emission detected in shallow observations are actually from the thick disk. The h is comparable to the L-band radio continuum scale height, both slightly larger than that at higher frequencies (C-band), where the cooling is stronger and the thermal contribution may be larger. The comparable H$\alpha$ and L-band scale height indicates that the thermal and non-thermal electrons have similar spatial distributions. This further indicates that the thermal gas, the cosmics rays, and the magnetic field may be close to energy equipartition.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: We study the vertical distribution of the highly inclined galaxies from the Continuum Halos in Nearby Galaxies - an EVLA Survey (CHANG-ES). We explore the feasibility of photometrically deriving the HI disk scale-heights from the moment-0 images of the relatively edge-on galaxies with inclination >80 deg, by quantifying the systematic broadening effects and thus deriving correction equations for direct measurements. The corrected HI disk scale-heights of the relatively edge-on galaxies from the CHANG-ES sample show trends consistent with the quasi-equilibrium model of the vertical structure of gas disks. The procedure provide a convenient way to derive the scale-heights and can easily be applied to statistical samples in the future.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: We present the HI distribution of galaxies from the Continuum Halos in Nearby Galaxies - an EVLA Survey (CHANG-ES). Though the observational mode was not optimized for detecting HI, we successfully produce HI cubes for 19 galaxies. The moment-0 maps from this work are available on CHANG-ES data release website, i.e., https://www.queensu.ca/changes. Our sample is dominated by star-forming, HI-rich galaxies at distances from 6.27 to 34.1 Mpc. HI interferometric images on two of these galaxies (NGC 5792 and UGC 10288) are presented here for the first time, while 12 of our remaining sample galaxies now have better HI spatial resolutions and/or sensitivities of intensity maps than those in existing publications. We characterize the average scale heights of the HI distributions for a subset of most inclined galaxies (inclination > 80 deg), and compare them to the radio continuum intensity scale heights, which have been derived in a similar way. The two types of scale heights are well correlated, with similar dependence on disk radial extension and star formation rate surface density but different dependence on mass surface density. This result indicates that the vertical distribution of the two components may be governed by similar fundamental physics but with subtle differences.
分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19
摘要: The extraplanar diffuse ionized gas (eDIG) represents the cool/warm ionized gas reservoir around galaxies. We present a spatial analysis of H$\alpha$ images of 22 nearby edge-on spiral galaxies from the CHANG-ES sample (the eDIG-CHANGES project), taken with the APO 3.5m telescope, in order to study their eDIG. We conduct an exponential fit to the vertical intensity profiles of the sample galaxies, of which 16 can be decomposed into a thin disk plus an extended thick disk component. The median value of the scale height (h) of the extended component is $1.13\pm 0.14$ kpc. We find a tight sublinear correlation between h and the SFR. Moreover, the offset of individual galaxies from the best-fit SFR-h relation shows significant anti-correlation with SFR_SD. This indicates that galaxies with more intense star formation tend to have disproportionately extended eDIG. Combined with data from the literature, we find that the correlations between the eDIG properties and the galaxies' properties extend to broader ranges. We further compare the vertical extension of the eDIG to multi-wavelength measurements of other CGM phases. We find the eDIG to be slightly more extended than the neutral gas (HI 21-cm line), indicating the existence of some extended ionizing sources. Most galaxies have an X-ray scale height smaller than the h, suggesting that the majority of the X-ray emission detected in shallow observations are actually from the thick disk. The h is comparable to the L-band radio continuum scale height, both slightly larger than that at higher frequencies (C-band), where the cooling is stronger and the thermal contribution may be larger. The comparable H$\alpha$ and L-band scale height indicates that the thermal and non-thermal electrons have similar spatial distributions. This further indicates that the thermal gas, the cosmics rays, and the magnetic field may be close to energy equipartition.