NIBLES: an H I census of stellar mass selected SDSS galaxies

Abstract

To investigate galaxy properties as a function of their total stellar mass, we obtained 21 cm H i line observations at the 100-m class Nançay Radio Telescope of 2839 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in the Local Volume (900 < cz < 12 000 km s −1 ), dubbed the Nançay Interstellar Baryons Legacy Extragalactic Survey (NIBLES) sample. They were selected evenly over their entire range of absolute SDSS z-band magnitudes (M z ∼ −13.5 to −24 mag), which were used as a proxy for their stellar masses. In this paper, a first, global presentation of the observations and basic results is given; their further analysis will be presented in other papers in this series. The galaxies were originally selected based on their properties, as listed in SDSS DR5. Comparing this photometry to their total H i masses, we noted that, for a few percent, the SDSS magnitudes appeared severely misunderestimated, as confirmed by our re-measurements for selected objects. Although using the later DR9 results eliminated this problem in most cases, 384 still required manual photometric source selection. Usable H i spectra were obtained for 2600 of the galaxies, of which 1733 (67%) were clearly detected and 174 (7%) marginally. The spectra for 241 other observed galaxies could not be used for further analysis owing to problems with either the H i or the SDSS data. We reached the target number of about 150 sources per half-magnitude bin over the M z range −16.5 to −23 mag. Down to −21 mag the overall detection rate is rather constant at the ∼75% level but it starts to decline steadily towards the 30% level at −23 mag. Making regression fits by comparing total H i and stellar masses for our sample, including our conservatively estimated H i upper limits for non-detections, we find the relationship log(M H I /M ) = −0.59 log(M ) + 5.05, which lies significantly below the relationship found in the M H I /M -M plane when only using H i detections.

A study of the H i and optical properties of Low Surface Brightness galaxies: spirals, dwarfs, and irregulars

“…It has been noted previously (Sprayberry et al 1995) that the (B-V ) colours of giant LSBGs are redder than those of averagesized LSB galaxies, but similar to HSB galaxies. Earlier studies have also shown the existence of red galaxies that are HI-rich, both LSBGs (van der Hulst et al 1987;O'Neil et al 1997;O'Neil, Bothun & Schombert 2000) and HSB spirals (e.g., Schommer & Bothun 1983;van Driel et al 2016).…”

hiss, a new tool for H i stacking: application to NIBLES spectra

“…In this second half of the paper, we will demonstrate some of the capabilities of HISS by stacking different sub-samples of galaxies observed as part of the Nançay Interstellar Baryon Legacy Extragalactic Survey (NIBLES; van Driel et al 2016), and re-visiting the well-known H i scaling relations (e.g. Catinella et al 2010Catinella et al , 2012Catinella et al , 2013Brown et al 2015).…”

“…The selected galaxies were chosen to uniformly sample the stellar mass range of the ensemble of galaxies in the local Universe. The particular selection criteria (van Driel et al 2016) were as follows:…”

“…In addition to these criteria, van Driel et al (2016), when selecting the target galaxies tried to avoid objects in and around the Virgo cluster as well as the ALFALFA α.40 footprint (Haynes et al 2011). The dense environment in the Virgo cluster is known to have noticeable effects on the H i properties of the galaxies in the region.…”

“…ALFALFA, HIPASS (Barnes et al 2001); see Table A .4 in van Driel et al 2016), the ALFALFA α.40 fluxes were found to be higher than the NIBLES fluxes by a factor α.40/NRT = 1.45 ± 0.17. The comparisons between NRT fluxes and the ALFALFA fluxes, as well as possible reasons for the difference in flux scales are discussed in detail in § 4.6 in van Driel et al (2016). In this work, the NIBLES fluxes are quoted.…”