Near-IR Imaging of LSB Galaxies: the High and Low HI Content Cases

We summarize results from an on-going Hubble Space Telescope (HST) survey of a large sample of ULIRGs (Ultra-Luminous IR Galaxies). New ground-based multi-fiber spectroscopic observations are now being obtained to complement the HST data and to assist in the interpretation of these complex objects.

A total of 334 Low Surface Brightness galaxies detected in the 2MASS all-sky near-infrared survey have been observed in the 21 cm HI line using the Nancay telescope. All have a K_s-band mean central surface brightness, measured within a 5 arcsec radius, fainter than 18 mag/arcsec^2 and a K_s-band isophotal radius at the 20 mag/arcsec^2 level larger than 20 arcsec. We present global HI line parameters for the 171 clearly detected objects and the 23 marginal detections, as well...

We have used the Nancay Radio Telescope to obtain new global HI data for 16 giant low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. Our targets have optical luminosities and disk scale lengths at the high end for spiral galaxies (L_B~10^10 Lsun and h_r>~6 kpc for H_0=75 km/s/Mpc), but they have diffuse stellar disks, with mean disk surface brightnesses ~1 magnitude or more fainter than normal giant spirals. Thirteen of the galaxies previously had been detected in HI by other workers, bu...

This paper presents new J and Ks data obtained from observations conducted at the ESO 3.5m New Technology Telescope using the SOFI camera. These data were taken as part of the ESO Imaging Survey Deep Public Survey (DPS) and significantly extend the earlier optical/infrared EIS-DEEP survey presented in a previous paper. The DPS-IR survey comprises two observing strategies: shallow Ks observations providing nearly full coverage of pointings with complementary multi-band optical...

We present near-IR, deep (4 mag deeper than 2MASS) imaging of 56 Local Volume galaxies. Global parameters such as total magnitudes and stellar masses have been derived and the new near-IR data combined with existing 21cm and optical B-band data. We present multiwavelength relations such as the HI mass-to-light ratio and investigate the maximum total baryonic mass a galaxy can have.

We present a study of the HI and optical properties of nearby ($z$ $\le$ 0.1) Low Surface Brightness galaxies (LSBGs). We started with a literature sample of $\sim$900 LSBGs and divided them into three morphological classes: spirals, irregulars and dwarfs. Of these, we could use $\sim$490 LSBGs to study their HI and stellar masses, colours and colour magnitude diagrams, and local environment, compare them with normal, High Surface Brightness (HSB) galaxies and determine the d...

HIZOA J0836-43is one of the most HI-massive galaxies in the local (z<0.1) Universe. Not only are such galaxies extremely rare, but this "coelacanth" galaxy exhibits characteristics -- in particular its active, inside-out stellar disk-building -- that appear more typical of past (z ~ 1) star formation, when large gas fractions were more common. Unlike most local giant HI galaxies, it is actively star forming. Moreover, the strong infrared emission is not induced by a merger ev...

We present the galaxy rest-frame near-IR Luminosity Function (LF) and its cosmic evolution to z=1.5 based on a spectroscopic survey of a magnitude limited sample of galaxies with Ks<20 (the K20 survey, Cimatti et al. 2002b). The LFs have been derived in the rest-frame J and Ks bands using 3 z bins (z_mean= 0.5, 1, 1.5) and compared to the local near-IR LF. The faint-end of the LFs is consistent with the local estimates, with no evidence for a change either in the slope or nor...

Blue compact galaxies are compact objects that are dominated by intense star formation. Most of them have dramatically different properties compared to the Milky Way and many other nearby galaxies. Using the IRAS, HI data, and optical spectra, we wanted to measure the current star formation rates, stellar components, metallicities, and star formation histories and evolution of a large blue compact galaxy sample. We anticipate that our study will be useful as a benchmark for s...

We present high spatial resolution, medium spectral resolution near-infrared (NIR) H- and K-band long-slit spectroscopy for a sample of 29 nearby (z < 0.01) inactive spiral galaxies, to study the composition of their NIR stellar populations. These spectra contain a wealth of diagnostic stellar absorption lines, e.g. MgI 1.575 micron, SiI 1.588 micron, CO (6-3) 1.619 micron, MgI 1.711 micron, NaI 2.207 micron, CaI 2.263 micron and the 12CO and 13CO bandheads longward of 2.29 m...