A unified picture of breaks and truncations in spiral galaxies from SDSS and S^{4}G imaging

Abstract

The mechanism causing breaks in the radial surface brightness distribution of spiral galaxies is not yet well known. Despite theoretical efforts, there is not a unique explanation for these features and the observational results are not conclusive. In an attempt to address this problem, we have selected a sample of 34 highly inclined spiral galaxies present both in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. We have measured the surface brightness profiles in the five Sloan optical bands and in the 3.6$\mu m$ Spitzer band. We have also calculated the color and stellar surface mass density profiles using the available photometric information, finding two differentiated features: an innermost break radius at distances of $\sim 8\pm 1$ kpc [$0.77\pm 0.06$ $R_{25}$] and a second characteristic radius, or truncation radius, close to the outermost optical extent ($\sim 14\pm 2$ kpc [$1.09\pm 0.05$ $R_{25}$]) of the galaxy. We propose in this work that the breaks might be a phenomena related to a threshold in the star formation, while truncations are more likely a real drop in the stellar mass density of the disk associated with the maximum angular momentum of the stars.

15 pages, 13 figures and 5 tables (+ appendix). Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (11)

• Forming Disk Galaxies in Lambda CDM Simulations
• The structure of galactic disks: Studying late-type spiral galaxies using SDSS
• The Outer Disks of Early-Type Galaxies. I. Surface-Brightness Profiles of Barred Galaxies
• Color Profiles of Spiral Galaxies: Clues on Outer-Disk Formation Scenarios
• The Nature and Origin of Substructure in the Outskirts of M31. I. Surveying the Stellar Content with HST/ACS
• Truncations of stellar disk and warps of HI-layers in edge-on spiral galaxies
• Stellar populations across the NGC4244 truncated galactic disk
• Color Profiles of Disk Galaxies since z~1: Probing Outer Disk Formation Scenarios
• Disk galaxies with broken luminosity profiles from cosmological simulations
• On the 3 dimensional structure of edge-on disk galaxies
• Deep Surface Brightness Profiles of Spiral Galaxies from SDSS Stripe82: Touching Stellar Halos

Cited by in corpus (35)

• The Dragonfly Nearby Galaxies Survey. I. Substantial variation in the diffuse stellar halos around spiral galaxies
• A physically motivated definition for the size of galaxies in an era of ultra-deep imaging
• Introducing the LBT Imaging of Galactic Halos and Tidal Structures (LIGHTS) survey. A preview of the low surface brightness Universe to be unveiled by LSST
• The Structure and Stellar Content of the Outer Disks of Galaxies: A New View from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey
• HIghMass -- High HI Mass, HI-rich Galaxies at z~0: Sample Definition, Optical and Halpha Imaging, and Star Formation Properties
• Evidence of Bar-induced Secular Evolution in the Inner Regions of Stellar Discs in Galaxies: What Shapes Disc Galaxies?
• The Mass Profile and Shape of Bars in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G): Search for an Age Indicator for Bars
• The VISCACHA survey -- IV. The SMC West Halo in 8D
• Optical imaging for the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. Data release and notes on interacting galaxies
• Stellar Disc Truncations and Extended Haloes in Face-on Spiral Galaxies
• How do spiral arm contrasts relate to bars, disk breaks and other fundamental galaxy properties?
• Stellar masses, sizes, and radial profiles for 465 nearby early-type galaxies: an extension to the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S${}^4$G)
• Influence of galaxy stellar mass and observed wavelength on disc breaks in S${}^4$G, NIRS0S, and SDSS data
• On the varied origins of up-bending breaks in galaxy disks
• The Role of Stellar Radial Motions in Shaping Galaxy Surface Brightness Profiles
• Measuring the X-shaped structures in edge-on galaxies
• Radial Star Formation Histories in 32 Nearby Galaxies
• The Impact of Stellar Migration on Disk Outskirts
• The AMIGA sample of isolated galaxies. XIV. Disc breaks and interactions through ultra-deep optical imaging
• JWST reveals a high fraction of disk breaks at $1\le z\le 3$
• Linking star formation thresholds and truncations in the thin and thick disks of the low-mass galaxy UGC 7321
• Tilted outer and inner structures in edge-on galaxies?
• Type-II surface brightness profiles in edge-on galaxies produced by flares
• New X-shaped bulge photometric model as a tool for measuring B/PS bulges and their X-structures in photometric studies
• The vertical structure of the spiral galaxy NGC 3501: first stages of the formation of a thin metal-rich disc
• The Way We Measure: Comparison of Methods to Derive Radial Surface Brightness Profiles
• The truncation of the disk of NGC 4565: Detected up to z=4 kpc, with star formation, and affected by the warp
• LIGHTS. A robust technique to identify galaxy edges
• Flares, Warps, Truncations, and Satellite: The Ultra-thin Galaxy UGC 11859
• A Galactic Self-Portrait: Density Structure and Integrated Properties of the Milky Way Disk
• Local variations of the Stellar Velocity Ellipsoid-I: the disc of galaxies in the Auriga simulations
• Gravitational interaction signatures in isolated galaxy triplet systems: a photometric analysis
• Automated galaxy sizes in Euclid images using the Segment Anything Model
• Revisiting the structure of galactic disks with deep imaging
• Hot accretion onto spiral galaxies: the origin of extended and warped HI discs