STRRINGS: STReams in Residual Images of Nearby GalaxieS

Abstract

Tidal features from galaxy mergers, particularly stellar streams, offer valuable insights into galaxy assembly and dark matter halo properties. This paper aims to identify a large sample of nearby stellar streams suitable for detailed modelling and comparison with simulations to enable population-level constraints on halo properties. We visually inspect and compile a tidal feature catalogue for $19,387$ galaxies with redshift $z\le 0.02$ from the Siena Galaxy Atlas 2020 using original, model, and residual images from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. Residual images, produced by subtracting models of all sources, enhance the detectability of faint asymmetries such as tidal features. We find that $11.9\pm 0.2\%$ of galaxies host detectable tidal features, more frequently around early-type than late-type galaxies. The tidal feature fraction increases with stellar mass, from $2.4\pm 0.4\%$ at $\sim 10^8$M${}_{\odot }$ to $36.5\pm 1.2\%$ at $\sim 5\times 10^{11}$M${}_{\odot }$. From this, we present the first release of STRRINGS: STReams in Residual Images of Nearby GalaxieS, a subsample of 35 galaxies with long, narrow streams suitable for modelling. We segment these streams and derive their geometry, surface brightness, colours, and stellar masses. The median $g$-band surface brightness is 26.8 magarcsec${}^{-2}$, reaching 27.5 magarcsec${}^{-2}$ for the faintest stream. Mass ratios are consistent with minor mergers, and we identify five potential dwarf galaxy progenitors. Our streams are typically longer (median 124 kpc) than the literature, with comparable widths. Stream mass correlates with length and colour, and wider streams lie at larger galactocentric radii. STRRINGS will be expanded and used to constrain halo properties in future work.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS on 2025 September 25. 28 pages, 22 figures

References in corpus (142)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• The Gaia mission
• Dark Matter Substructure in Galactic Halos
• The Optical and Near-Infrared Properties of Galaxies: I. Luminosity and Stellar Mass Functions
• Hierarchical Galaxy Formation
• Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys
• The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE)
• Physical Models of Galaxy Formation in a Cosmological Framework
• The DESI Experiment Part I: Science,Targeting, and Survey Design
• A Cosmology Calculator for the World Wide Web
• Tracing Galaxy Formation with Stellar Halos I: Methods
• The Dark Energy Survey: more than dark energy - an overview
• The Field of Streams: Sagittarius and its Siblings
• A New Non-Parametric Approach to Galaxy Morphological Classification
• The Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relation
• The Connection between Galaxies and their Dark Matter Halos
• The large-scale structure of the Universe
• Theoretical Challenges in Galaxy Formation
• Galactic stellar haloes in the CDM model
• The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy: a Model for Evolution in a Triaxial Milky Way Halo
• A Direct Measurement of Major Galaxy Mergers at z < 3
• The Evolution of Galaxy Structure over Cosmic Time
• Great Circle tidal streams: evidence for a nearly spherical massive dark halo around the Milky Way
• A New Approach to Galaxy Morphology: I. Analysis of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release
• The Major and Minor Galaxy Merger Rates at z < 1.5
• Galaxy Merger Morphologies and Time-Scales from Simulations of Equal-Mass Gas-Rich Disc Mergers
• Constraining the Milky Way potential with a 6-D phase-space map of the GD-1 stellar stream
• Tracing Galaxy Formation with Stellar Halos II: Relating Substructure in Phase- and Abundance-Space to Accretion Histories
• The Recent and Continuing Assembly of Field Ellipticals by Red Mergers
• Stellar Tidal Streams in Spiral Galaxies of the Local Volume: A Pilot Survey with Modest Aperture Telescopes
• The Atlas3D project -- XXIX. The new look of early-type galaxies and surrounding fields disclosed by extremely deep optical images
• The total mass of the Large Magellanic Cloud from its perturbation on the Orphan stream
• A 2MASS All-Sky View of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy: IV. Modeling the Sagittarius Tidal Tails
• Dry Mergers in GEMS: The Dynamical Evolution of Massive Early-Type Galaxies
• Fossil Signatures of Ancient Accretion Events in the Halo
• A Prescription for Building the Milky Way's Halo from Disrupted Satellites
• The Frequency of Tidal Features Associated with Nearby Luminous Elliptical Galaxies from a Statistically Complete Sample
• One Ring to Encompass them All: A giant stellar structure that surrounds the Galaxy
• The Origin of the Bifurcation in the Sagittarius Stream
• A 2MASS All-Sky View of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy: III. Constraints on the Flattening of the Galactic Halo
• The DESI Experiment Part II: Instrument Design
• Velocity trends in the debris of Sagittarius and the shape of the dark-matter halo of the Galaxy
• Precession of the Sagittarius stream
• The Atlas3D Project - VI. Simulations of binary galaxy mergers and the link with Fast Rotators, Slow Rotators, and Kinematically Distinct Cores
• Tidal Streams as Probes of the Galactic Potential
• Galaxy Zoo DECaLS: Detailed Visual Morphology Measurements from Volunteers and Deep Learning for 314,000 Galaxies
• The role of mergers and halo spin in shaping galaxy morphology
• Shock-induced star formation in a model of the Mice
• The stellar-to-halo mass relation over the past 12 Gyr
• Building Late-Type Spiral Galaxies by In-Situ and Ex-Situ Star Formation
• The shape of the inner Milky Way halo from observations of the Pal 5 and GD-1 stellar streams
• Ongoing Assembly of Massive Galaxies by Major Merging in Large Groups and Clusters from the SDSS
• Noise Based Detection and Segmentation of Nebulous Objects
• Shape asymmetry: a morphological indicator for automatic detection of galaxies in the post-coalescence merger stages
• The ghost of a dwarf galaxy: fossils of the hierarchical formation of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 5907
• Inferring the Andromeda Galaxy's mass from its giant southern stream with Bayesian simulation sampling
• Effect of galaxy mergers on star formation rates
• The CFHTLS Deep Catalog of Interacting Galaxies I. Merger Rate Evolution to z=1.2
• Baryonic impact on the dark matter distribution in Milky Way-size galaxies and their satellites
• Constraining the Milky Way Halo Potential with the GD-1 stellar stream
• The Orbit of the Orphan Stream
• Shaken and Stirred: The Milky Way's Dark Substructures
• The Optical and Near-Infrared Morphologies of Isolated Early Type Galaxies
• Faint Tidal Features in Galaxies within the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Wide Fields
• Galactic cirri in deep optical imaging
• Kinematics of tidal tails in interacting galaxies: Tidal Dwarf Galaxies and projection effects
• Is the dark halo of our Galaxy spherical?
• Interpreting Debris from Satellite Disruption In External Galaxies
• Discovery of a Giant Stellar Tidal Stream Around the Disk Galaxy NGC 4013
• Shadows in the Dark: Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey
• Investigating the Andromeda Stream: II. Orbital Fits and Properties of the Progenitor
• Stream-orbit misalignment I: The dangers of orbit-fitting
• $S^5$: Probing the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds potentials with the 6-D map of the Orphan-Chenab stream
• Formation and Incidence of Shell Galaxies in the Illustris Simulation
• Interacting galaxies in the nearby Universe: only moderate increase of star formation
• Tidal debris morphology and the orbits of satellite galaxies
• The information content in cold stellar streams
• Stellar Streams as Probes of Dark Halo Mass and Morphology: A Bayesian Reconstruction
• Go with the Flow: Understanding Inflow Mechanisms in Galaxy Collisions
• On feathers, bifurcations and shells: the dynamics of tidal streams across the mass scale
• The Outer Stellar Halos of Galaxies: how Radial Merger Mass Deposition, Shells and Streams depend on Infall-Orbit Configurations
• Identifying Galaxy Mergers in Observations and Simulations with Deep Learning
• Probing the merger history of red early-type galaxies with their faint stellar substructures
• Convolutional neural network identification of galaxy post-mergers in UNIONS using IllustrisTNG
• Census and classification of low-surface-brightness structures in nearby early-type galaxies from the MATLAS survey
• Preparing for low surface brightness science with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory: characterisation of tidal features from mock images
• Galaxy Zoo: Quantifying Morphological Indicators of Galaxy Interaction
• The $>100$ kpc Distant Spur of the Sagittarius Stream and the Outer Virgo Overdensity, as Seen in PS1 RR Lyrae Stars
• Minor vs Major Mergers: The Stellar Mass Growth of Massive Galaxies from z=3 using Number Density Selection Techniques
• Stray, swing and scatter: angular momentum evolution of orbits and streams in aspherical potentials
• Tidal Features at 0.05<z<0.45 in the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program: Properties and Formation Channels
• Identification of Low Surface Brightness Tidal Features in Galaxies Using Convolutional Neural Networks
• Hidden depths in the local Universe: The Stellar Stream Legacy Survey
• The Origin of Faint Tidal Features Around Galaxies in the RESOLVE Survey
• Peculiar early-type galaxies in the SDSS Stripe82
• Systematic search for tidal features around nearby galaxies: I. Enhanced SDSS imaging of the Local Volume
• Tidal streams around galaxies in the SDSS DR7 archive
• Hierarchical progressive surveys. Multi-resolution HEALPix data structures for astronomical images, catalogues, and 3-dimensional data cubes
• Full 5D characterisation of the Sagittarius stream with Gaia DR2 RR Lyrae
• Post-merger Signatures of Red-sequence Galaxies in Rich Abell Clusters at $z\lesssim 0.1$
• A direct measurement of galaxy major and minor merger rates and stellar mass accretion histories at $z<3$ using galaxy pairs in the REFINE survey
• SDSS IV MaNGA: Visual Morphological and Statistical Characterization of the DR15 sample
• Characterization of Low Surface Brightness structures in annotated deep images
• Locating the orbits delineated by tidal streams
• Tides in colliding galaxies
• Early type galaxies with tidal debris and their scaling relations in the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G)
• Constraining the Milky Way Halo Shape Using Thin Streams
• AutoProf -- I. An automated non-parametric light profile pipeline for modern galaxy surveys
• Euclid preparation: XVI. Exploring the ultra low-surface brightness Universe with Euclid/VIS
• The local Tully-Fisher relation for dwarf galaxies
• A tidal tale: detection of multiple stellar streams in the environment of NGC1052
• Streams on FIRE: Populations of Detectable Stellar Streams in the Milky Way and FIRE
• Fitting orbits to tidal streams
• Generation of rotationally dominated galaxies by mergers of pressure-supported progenitors
• Mapping Dark Matter with Extragalactic Stellar Streams: the Case of Centaurus A
• Identification of tidal features in deep optical galaxy images with Convolutional Neural Networks
• Constraining the Gravitational Potential from the Projected Morphology of Extragalactic Tidal Streams
• EAGLE-Auriga: effects of different subgrid models on the baryon cycle around Milky Way-mass galaxies
• WALLABY Pilot Survey: the Potential Polar Ring Galaxies NGC~4632 and NGC~6156
• Frequency of Tidal Features Correlates with Age and Internal Structure of Early-type Galaxies
• Evidence for Impact of Galaxy Mergers on Stellar Kinematics of Early-type Galaxies
• A machine--vision method for automatic classification of stellar halo substructure
• A stream come true: Connecting tidal tails, shells, streams, and planes with galaxy kinematics and formation history
• Studying the Physical Properties of Tidal Features I. Extracting Morphological Substructure in CANDELS Observations and VELA Simulations
• Characterising Tidal Features Around Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Using Tidal Streams and Shells to Trace the Dynamical Evolution of Massive Galaxies
• Extragalactic Stellar Tidal Streams in the Dark Energy Survey
• A dwarf galaxy's transformation and a massive galaxy's edge: autopsy of kill and killer in NGC 1097
• Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): Comparing Visually and Spectroscopically Identified Galaxy Merger Samples
• Colour gradients of low-redshift galaxies in the DESI Legacy Imaging Survey
• Massive Early-Type Galaxies in the HSC-SSP: Flux Fraction of Tidal Features and Merger Rates
• Substructures, Resonances and debris streams
• A search for stellar tidal streams around Milky Way analogues from the SAGA sample
• Remnants of recent mergers in nearby early-type galaxies and their classification
• Impact of Galaxy Mergers on Stellar Population Profiles of Early-type Galaxies
• Extragalactic Stellar Tidal Streams: Observations meet Simulation
• Tidal features and disc thicknesses of edge-on galaxies in the SDSS Stripe 82
• Uncovering Tidal Treasures: Automated Classification of Faint Tidal Features in DECaLS Data
• Low Surface Brightness structures from annotated deep CFHT images: effects of the host galaxy's properties and environment
• The Most Massive Early-type Galaxies Exhibit Tidal Features More Frequently in Lower-density Environments
• Probing the dark matter haloes of external galaxies with stellar streams
• Modeling Tidal Streams and Tidal Tails around Galaxies Using Deep Wendelstein Imaging Data

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Tidal Structures Around Edge-On Galaxies in Deep Imaging Surveys
• Adaptive optics imaging of the nuclei of Seyfert 2 galaxies: An unexpectedly high incidence of nuclear stellar rings
• Constraining the population of dark matter halo shapes using hierarchical inference with extragalactic stellar streams