Halos around edge-on disk galaxies in the SDSS

Abstract

We present a statistical analysis of halo emission for a sample of 1047 edge-on disk galaxies imaged in five bands by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Stacking the homogeneously rescaled images of the galaxies, we can measure surface brightnesses as deep as mu_r~31 mag/arcsec^2. The results strongly support the almost ubiquitous presence of stellar halos around disk galaxies, whose spatial distribution is well described by a power-law $\rho \propto r^{-3}$, in a moderately flattened spheroid (c/a~0.6). The colour estimates in g-r and r-i, although uncertain, give a clear indication for extremely red stellar populations, hinting at old ages and/or non-negligible metal enrichment. These results support the idea of halos being assembled via early merging of satellite galaxies.

15 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication on MNRAS. Version with full resolution images available at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~zibetti/papers/halos_edgeon.pdf

References in corpus (36)

• Maps of Dust IR Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and CMBR Foregrounds
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Populating a cluster of galaxies - I. Results at z=0
• Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Camera
• The u'g'r'i'z' Standard Star Network
• The size distribution of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Galaxy Luminosity Function and Luminosity Density at Redshift z=0.1
• Semi-Analytic Modelling of Galaxy Formation: The Local Universe
• Clustering of Galaxies in a Hierarchical Universe: I. Methods and Results at z=0
• The First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Astrometric Calibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• A photometricity and extinction monitor at the Apache Point Observatory
• Debris streams in the solar neighbourhood as relicts from the formation of the Milky Way
• An Efficient Algorithm for Positioning Tiles in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Evolution of the Hubble Sequence in Hierarchical Models for Galaxy Formation
• A Low Latitude Halo Stream around the Milky Way
• Evidence for Stellar Substructure in the Halo and Outer Disk of M31
• Dark Halo and Disk Galaxy Scaling Laws in Hierarchical Universes
• Introducing GOLDMine: A new Galaxy Database on the WEB
• Galaxy Formation and Large-Scale Bias
• Structure of Disk Dominated Galaxies I. Bulge/Disk Parameters, Simulations, and Secular Evolution
• Flattening and truncation of stellar discs in edge-on spiral galaxies
• One Ring to Encompass them All: A giant stellar structure that surrounds the Galaxy
• Candidate RR Lyrae Stars Found in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data
• Early-type galaxies in the SDSS. IV. Colors and chemical evolution
• A Structural and Dynamical Study of Late-Type, Edge-On Galaxies: II. Vertical Color Gradients and the Detection of Ubiquitous Thick Disks
• Formation of disk galaxies: feedback and the angular momentum problem
• Kinematic study of the disrupting globular cluster Palomar 5 using VLT spectra
• A Faint Luminous Halo that May Trace the Dark Matter around Spiral Galaxy NGC~5907
• The Dependence of Velocity and Clustering Statistics on Galaxy Properties
• Deep CCD Surface Photometry of the Edge-On Spiral NGC 4244
• Intermediate-band Surface Photometry of the Edge-on Galaxy: NGC 4565
• The Effects of Mergers on the Formation of Disc-Bulge Systems in Hierarchical Clustering Scenarios
• The Stellar Content of the Halo of NGC 5907 from Deep HST NICMOS Imaging
• A Search for Near-Infrared Emission From the Halo of NGC 5907 at Radii of 10 kpc to 30 kpc

Cited by in corpus (96)

• Galactic stellar haloes in the CDM model
• The Haunted Halos of Andromeda and Triangulum: A panorama of galaxy formation in action
• Internal and External Alignment of the Shapes and Angular Momenta of LCDM Halos
• Structural Parameters of Thin and Thick Disks in Edge-On Disk Galaxies
• Cosmological simulations of the formation of the stellar haloes around disc galaxies
• Stars beyond Galaxies: The Origin of Extended Luminous Halos around Galaxies
• The Milky Way: An Exceptionally Quiet Galaxy; Implications for the formation of spiral galaxies
• The stellar halo of the Galaxy
• Thin disc, Thick Disc and Halo in a Simulated Galaxy
• Galactic accretion and the outer structure of galaxies in the CDM model
• A Minor Axis Surface Brightness Profile for M31
• Global structure and kinematics of stellar haloes in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations
• The IAC Stripe 82 Legacy Project: a wide-area survey for faint surface brightness astronomy
• Phase-Space Distributions of Chemical Abundances in Milky Way-type Galaxy Halos
• Parametrizing the Stellar Haloes of Galaxies
• Optical properties and spatial distribution of MgII absorbers from SDSS image stacking
• A Study of Edge-On Galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. II. Vertical distribution of the resolved stellar population
• The GHOSTS survey. II. The diversity of Halo Color and Metallicity Profiles of Massive Disk Galaxies
• New Light on the Formation and Evolution of M31 and its Globular Cluster System
• On the Similarity between Cluster and Galactic Stellar Initial Mass Functions
• The influence of diffuse scattered light I. The PSF and its role to observations of the edge-on galaxy NGC 5907
• Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: Detection of Intra-cluster Light at Redshift $\sim$ 0.25
• The ARTEMIS simulations: stellar haloes of Milky Way-mass galaxies
• The subhalo - satellite connection and the fate of disrupted satellite galaxies
• VEGAS: A VST Early-type GAlaxy Survey. I. Presentation, wide-field surface photometry, and substructures in NGC 4472
• The faint stellar halos of massive red galaxies from stacks of more than 42000 SDSS LRG images
• The Catalog of Edge-on Disk Galaxies from SDSS. Part I: the catalog and the Structural Parameters of Stellar Disks
• The Kinematics of Thick Disks in External Galaxies
• Lick Indices in the Thin and Thick Disks of Edge-On Disk Galaxies
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey extended point spread functions
• Heated Disc Stars in the Stellar Halo
• A Comparison of the Chemical Evolutionary Histories of the Galactic Thin Disk and Thick Disk Stellar Populations
• The influence of diffuse scattered light II. Observations of galaxy haloes and thick discs and hosts of BCGs
• Photometry and the Metallicity Distribution of the Outer Halo of M31. II. The 30 Kpc Field
• Substructure around M31 : Evolution and Effects
• Quantifying the Faint Structure of Galaxies: The Late-type Spiral NGC 2403
• The Structure and Stellar Content of the Outer Disks of Galaxies: A New View from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey
• Stellar Halos in Illustris- Probing the Histories of Milky Way-Mass Galaxies
• Star Formation from DLA Gas in the Outskirts of Lyman Break Galaxies at z~3
• Resolving the Stellar Outskirts of M81: Evidence for a Faint, Extended Structural Component
• Bivariate Galaxy Luminosity Functions in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Stellar Mass Components of Galaxies: Comparing Semi-Analytical Models with Observation
• Discovery of disc truncations above the galaxies' mid-plane in Milky Way-like galaxies
• Tracing the outer halo in a giant elliptical to 25 Reff
• Properties of satellite galaxies in the SDSS photometric survey: luminosities, colours and projected number density profiles
• The cosmic assembly of stellar haloes in massive Early-Type Galaxies
• A faint red stellar halo around an edge-on disc galaxy in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• Resolving the Stellar Outskirts of M31 and M33
• A Simultaneous Stacking and Deblending Algorithm for Astronomical Images
• Point spread function tails and the measurements of diffuse stellar halo light around edge-on disc galaxies
• Surface Brightness Profiles of Composite Images of Compact Galaxies at z~4-6 in the HUDF
• Contrasting the chemical evolution of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies
• Loops formed by tidal tails as fossil records of a major merger
• Evidence of Absence of Tidal Features in the Outskirts of Ultra Diffuse Galaxies in the Coma Cluster
• Stellar haloes of disc galaxies at z~1
• The stellar halo of isolated central galaxies in the Hyper Suprime-Cam imaging survey
• The stellar population content of the thick disk and halo of the Milky Way analogue NGC 891
• Stellar Disc Truncations and Extended Haloes in Face-on Spiral Galaxies
• Stellar haloes outshine disc truncations in low-inclined spirals
• The Kinematic Properties of the Extended Disks of Spiral Galaxies: A Sample of Edge-On Galaxies
• Radial Star Formation Histories in Fifteen Nearby Galaxies
• Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): Extended Intra-Group Light in a group at $z=0.2$ from deep Hyper-Suprime Cam images
• Stellar Population Trends in S0 Galaxies
• When was the Large Magellanic Cloud accreted onto the Galaxy ?
• Constraining the photometric properties of MgII absorbing galaxies with the SDSS
• The Red Halo Phenomenon
• Unearthing Foundations of a Cosmic Cathedral: Searching the Stars for M33's Halo
• Two Candidates for Dual AGN in Dwarf-Dwarf Galaxy Mergers
• The stellar mass in and around isolated central galaxies: connections to the total mass distribution through galaxy-galaxy lensing in the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey
• Multi-resolution filtering: an empirical method for isolating faint, extended emission in Dragonfly data and other low resolution images
• Direct detection of galaxy stellar halos : NGC 3957 as a test case
• Properties of extragalactic thick discs recovered from ultra-deep Stripe82 imaging
• The NGC 4013 tale: a pseudo-bulged, late-type spiral shaped by a major merger
• Dynamics of Gaseous Disks in a Non-axisymmetric Dark Halo
• The red halos of SDSS low surface brightness disk galaxies
• The elusive stellar halo of the Triangulum Galaxy
• The Origin of Stars in the Inner 500 Parsecs in TNG50 Galaxies
• Observational and theoretical constraints for an H$\alpha$-halo around the Crab Nebula
• Unlocking the secrets of stellar haloes using combined star counts and surface photometry
• The color gradients of spiral disks in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Isothermal distributions in MONDian gravity as a simple unifying explanation for the ubiquitous $\rho \propto r^{-3}$ density profiles in tenuous stellar halos
• Dust in Clusters of Galaxies
• An Overdensity of i-dropouts Among A Population of Excess Field Objects in the Virgo Cluster
• Resolved Stellar Populations as Tracers of Outskirts
• How the extinction of extragalactic background light affects surface photometry of galaxies, groups and clusters
• The truncation of the disk of NGC 4565: Detected up to z=4 kpc, with star formation, and affected by the warp
• Measuring Structural Parameters Through Stacking Galaxy Images
• Are the red halos of galaxies made of low-mass stars? Constraints from subdwarf star counts in the Milky Way halo
• Studying Quasar Absorber Host Galaxy Properties Using Image Stacking Technique
• Dark Energy Survey Year 6 Results: Intra-Cluster Light from Redshift 0.2 to 0.5
• Detection of a Stellar Halo in NGC 4244
• Red Halos of Galaxies - Reservoirs of Baryonic Dark Matter?
• The Structure of Galaxies at Faint Light Levels: Probing Galaxy Assembly
• Revealing a strongly reddened, faint active galactic nucleus population by stacking deep co-added images
• Observational Comparison of Star Formation in Different Galaxy Types
• The faint outskirts of the blue compact galaxy Haro 11: is there a red excess?