SDSS-IV MaNGA: A serendipitous observation of a potential gas accretion event

Abstract

The nature of warm, ionized gas outside of galaxies may illuminate several key galaxy evolutionary processes. A serendipitous observation by the MaNGA survey has revealed a large, asymmetric H$\alpha$ complex with no optical counterpart that extends $\approx 8"$ ($\approx 6.3$ kpc) beyond the effective radius of a dusty, starbursting galaxy. This H$\alpha$ extension is approximately three times the effective radius of the host galaxy and displays a tail-like morphology. We analyze its gas-phase metallicities, gaseous kinematics, and emission-line ratios, and discuss whether this H$\alpha$ extension could be diffuse ionized gas, a gas accretion event, or something else. We find that this warm, ionized gas structure is most consistent with gas accretion through recycled wind material, which could be an important process that regulates the low-mass end of the galaxy stellar mass function.

Accepted for publication in ApJ; 11 pages, 6 figures

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Ionised gas structure of 100 kpc in an over-dense region of the galaxy group COSMOS-Gr30 at z ~ 0.7
• SDSS IV MaNGA: Discovery of an $H_{\alpha }$ blob associated with a dry galaxy pair -- ejected gas or a `dark' galaxy candidate?
• Outlying H$\alpha$ emitters in SDSS IV MaNGA
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: the physical origin of off-galaxy H$\alpha$ blobs in the local Universe
• Discovery of faint double-peak Halpha emission in the halo of low redshift galaxies