A unified picture of breaks and truncations in spiral galaxies from SDSS and S4G imaging - UTU Research Portal

A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

A unified picture of breaks and truncations in spiral galaxies from SDSS and S4G imaging

Authors: Martín-Navarro I, Bakos J, Trujillo I, Knapen J, Athanassoula E, Bosma A, Comerón S, Elmegreen B, Erroz-Ferrer S, Gadotti D, Gil de Paz A, Hinz J, Ho L, Holwerda B, Kim T, Laine J, Laurikainen E, Menéndez-Delmestre K, Mizusawa T, Muñoz-Mateos J-C, Regan M, Salo H, Seibert M, Sheth K

Publisher: Royal Astronomical Society

Publishing place: Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BQ, UK

Publication year: 2012

Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Journal acronym: MNRAS

Volume: 427

Issue: 2

First page : 1102

Last page: 1134

Number of pages: 33

ISSN: 0035-8711

eISSN: 1365-2966

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21929.x

Web address : http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012MNRAS.427.1102M

Abstract

The mechanism causing breaks in the radial surface-brightness distribution of spiral galaxies is not yet well known. Despite theoretical efforts, there is not a unique explanation for these features and the observational results are not conclusive. In an attempt to address this problem, we have selected a sample of 34 highly inclined spiral galaxies present in both the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S⁴G). We have measured the surface-brightness profiles in the five Sloan optical bands and in the 3.6-μm Spitzer band. We have also calculated the colour and stellar surface mass density profiles using the available photometric information, finding two differentiated features: an innermost break radius at distances of ˜8 ± 1 kpc [0.77 ± 0.06 R₂₅] and a second characteristic radius, or truncation radius, close to the outermost optical extent (˜14 ± 2 kpc [1.09 ± 0.05 R₂₅]) of the galaxy. We propose in this work that breaks might be phenomena related to a threshold in the star formation, while truncations are more likely a real drop in the stellar mass density of the disc associated with the maximum angular momentum of the stars.