A deep narrowband survey for planetary nebulae at the outskirts of M33

Abstract

Context: Planetary nebulae (PNe) are excellent tracers of stellar populations with low surface brightness, and therefore provide a powerful method to detect and explore the rich system of substructures discovered around the main spiral galaxies of the Local Group. Aims: We searched the outskirts of the Local Group spiral galaxy M33 (the Triangulum) for PNe to gain new insights into the extended stellar substructure on the northern side of the disc and to study the existence of a faint classical halo. Methods: The search is based on wide field imaging covering a 4.5 square degree area out to a maximum projected distance of about 40 kpc from the centre of the galaxy. The PN candidates are detected by the combination of images obtained in narrowband filters selecting the [OIII]$\lambda 5007\mathring{A}$ and H$\alpha$ + [NII] nebular lines and in the continuum g' and r' broadband filters. Results:Inside the bright optical disc of M33, eight new PN candidates were identified, three of which were spectroscopically confirmed. No PN candidates were found outside the limits of the disc. Fourteen additional sources showing [OIII] excess were also discovered. Conclusions:The absence of bright PN candidates in the area outside the galaxy disc covered by this survey sets an upper limit to the luminosity of the underlying population of $\sim 1.6\cdot 10^7{\mathrm{L}}_{\odot }$, suggesting the lack of a massive classical halo, which is in agreement with the results obtained using the RGB population.

arXiv comment13 pages, 18 figures

References in corpus (39)

• Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant
• Cosmic-Ray Rejection by Laplacian Edge Detection
• The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
• HyperLEDA. III. The catalogue of extragalactic distances
• The remnants of galaxy formation from a panoramic survey of the region around M31
• The Haunted Halos of Andromeda and Triangulum: A panorama of galaxy formation in action
• Planetary Nebulae as Standard Candles. XII. Connecting the Population I and Population II Distance Scales
• The flat oxygen abundance gradient in the extended disk of M83
• A deep kinematic survey of planetary nebulae in the Andromeda Galaxy using the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph
• Planetary nebulae as tracers of galaxy stellar populations
• Orbits of Massive Satellite Galaxies: I. A Close Look at the Large Magellanic Cloud and a New Orbital History for M33
• The Planetary Nebula System of M33
• RR Lyrae Variables in M33. I. Evidence For a Field Halo Population
• Candidate Type II Quasars at 2 < z < 4.3 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III
• A survey of luminous high-redshift quasars with SDSS and WISE. I. target selection and optical spectroscopy
• The Rest Frame Ultraviolet Spectra of UV-Selected Active Galactic Nuclei at z ~ 2-3
• The planetary nebula population of M33 and its metallicity gradient: A look into the galaxy's distant past
• The Kinematics of Intracluster Planetary Nebulae and the On-Going Subcluster Merger in the Coma Cluster Core
• The outer regions of the giant Virgo galaxy M87. Kinematic separation of stellar halo and intracluster light
• The Stellar Populations of M33's Outer Regions III: Star Formation History
• The Stellar Populations of M33's Outer Regions IV: Inflow History and Chemical Evolution
• The photometric properties of a vast stellar substructure in the outskirts of M33
• The Star Formation History in The Far Outer Disc of M33
• IC10: the history of the nearest starburst galaxy through its Planetary Nebula and HII region populations
• Metallicity gradients in Local Universe galaxies: time evolution and effects of radial migration
• The evolution of planetary nebulae. V. The diffuse X-ray emission
• The evolution of planetary nebulae IV. On the physics of the luminosity function
• The Local Group Census: planetary nebulae in IC 10, Leo A and Sextans A
• AGB stars as tracers of metallicity and mean age across M33
• Resolving the Stellar Outskirts of M31 and M33
• The Stellar Populations of M33's Outer Regions II: Deep ACS Imaging
• The Progenitors and Lifetimes of Planetary Nebula
• The S2N2 metallicity calibrator and the abundance gradient of M 33
• PNe and H II regions in the starburst irregular galaxy NGC 4449 from LBT MODS data
• A Survey of the Local Group of Galaxies for Symbiotic Binary Stars. I. First detection of symbiotic stars in M33
• The chemistry of planetary nebulae in the outer regions of M31
• Unearthing Foundations of a Cosmic Cathedral: Searching the Stars for M33's Halo
• The Local Group Census: planetary nebulae in Sextans B
• The elusive stellar halo of the Triangulum Galaxy

Cited by in corpus (2)

• The TREX Survey: Kinematical Complexity Throughout M33's Stellar Disk and Evidence for a Stellar Halo
• Discovery of a large and faint nebula at the Triangulum galaxy