Influence of galaxy stellar mass and observed wavelength on disc breaks in S${}^4$G, NIRS0S, and SDSS data

Abstract

Breaks in the surface brightness profiles in the outer regions of galactic discs are thought to have formed by various internal and external processes, and by studying the breaks we aim to better understand what processes are responsible for the evolution of the outer discs. We use a large well-defined sample to study how common the breaks are, and whether their properties depend on galaxy stellar mass or observed wavelength. We study radial surface brightness profiles of 753 galaxies, obtained from the $3.6\mu m$ images of the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S${}^4$G), and the $K_s$-band data from the Near InfraRed S0-Sa galaxy Survey (NIRS0S), covering a wide range of galaxy morphologies and stellar masses. Optical SDSS or Liverpool telescope data was used for 480 of these galaxies. We find that in low-mass galaxies the single exponential discs (Type I) are most common, and that their fraction decreases with increasing galaxy stellar mass. The fraction of down-bending (Type II) discs increases with stellar mass, possibly due to more common occurrence of bar resonance structures. The up-bending (Type III) discs are also more common in massive galaxies. The observed wavelength affects the scalelength of the disc of every profile type. Especially the scalelength of the inner disc of Type II profiles increases from infrared to u-band on average by a factor of $\sim 2.2$. Consistent with the previous studies, we find that Type II outer disc scalelengths ($h_o$) in late-type and low-mass galaxies are shorter in bluer wavelengths, possibly due to stellar radial migration populating the outer discs with old stars. In Type III discs $h_o$ are larger in the u-band, hinting to the presence of young stellar population in the outer disc. While the observed wavelength affects the disc parameters, it does not significantly affect the profile type in our sample. (Abridged)

22 pages, 16 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

References in corpus (22)

• HyperLEDA. III. The catalogue of extragalactic distances
• Structural Properties of Pseudo-Bulges, Classical Bulges and Elliptical Galaxies: an SDSS Perspective
• A Search for Extended Ultraviolet Disk (XUV-disk) Galaxies in the Local Universe
• The structure of galactic disks: Studying late-type spiral galaxies using SDSS
• A Classical Morphological Analysis of Galaxies in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)
• Reconstructing the Subsurface Three-Dimensional Magnetic Structure of A Solar Active Region Using SDO/HMI Observations
• Scaling Relations of Spiral Galaxies
• 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
• Antitruncated Stellar Disks via Minor Mergers
• On the formation of extended galactic disks by tidally disrupted dwarf galaxies
• An N-body/SPH Study of Isolated Galaxy Mass Density Profiles
• On The Extended Knotted Disks of Galaxies
• A unified picture of breaks and truncations in spiral galaxies from SDSS and S^{4}G imaging
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. V. Antitruncated stellar discs resulting from major mergers
• Color Profiles of Disk Galaxies since z~1: Probing Outer Disk Formation Scenarios
• The Structure and Stellar Content of the Outer Disks of Galaxies: A New View from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey
• Disk galaxies with broken luminosity profiles from cosmological simulations
• Cosmic Evolution of Stellar Disk Truncations: From z~1 to the Local Universe
• From outside-in to inside-out: galaxy assembly mode depends on stellar mass
• Evidence of Bar-induced Secular Evolution in the Inner Regions of Stellar Discs in Galaxies: What Shapes Disc Galaxies?
• Optical imaging for the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. Data release and notes on interacting galaxies

Cited by in corpus (18)

• The distribution of star formation in galactic bars as seen with H$\alpha$ and stacked GALEX UV imaging
• The Fornax Deep Survey with VST. X. The assembly history of the bright galaxies and intra-group light in the Fornax A subgroup
• The Gas-Star Formation Cycle in Nearby Star-forming Galaxies II. Resolved Distributions of CO and H$\alpha$ Emission for 49 PHANGS Galaxies
• 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)
• On the varied origins of up-bending breaks in galaxy disks
• Star-Forming Environments Throughout the M101 Group
• The Extended Disk Galaxy Exploration Science Survey: Description and Surface Brightness Profile Properties
• Evolution of the anti-truncated stellar profiles of S0 galaxies since $z=0.6$ in the SHARDS survey: I - Sample and Methods
• JWST reveals a high fraction of disk breaks at $1\le z\le 3$
• Is NGC 300 a pure exponential disk galaxy?
• New Constraints on the Origin of Surface Brightness Profile Breaks of Disk Galaxies from MaNGA
• Star formation in outer rings of S0 galaxies. IV. NGC 254 -- a double-ringed S0 with gas counter-rotation
• Euclid: Early Release Observations -- The surface brightness and colour profiles of the far outskirts of galaxies in the Perseus cluster
• The Complete Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (CS${}^4$G)
• The role of environment on the evolution of disc galaxies density profiles New insights from simulations and comparison to Euclid data
• Mapping the Milky Way with Gaia Bp/Rp spectra-IV: the broken and asymmetric density profile of the stellar disk traced by a large sample of red clumps
• VST-SMASH: VST Survey of Mass Assembly and Structural Hierarchy I. Survey presentation and deep photometry of IC 5332: tracing the mass assembly in the challenging faintest-end regime
• Using the EAGLE simulations to elucidate the origin of disc surface brightness profile breaks as a function of mass and environment