학술논문

The AMIGA sample of isolated galaxies - effects of environment on angular momentum
Document Type
Source
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 528(2):1630-1654
Subject
galaxies: spiral
galaxies: evolution
galaxies: fundamental parameters
dark matter
galaxies: kinematics and dynamics
Language
English
ISSN
0035-8711
1365-2966
Abstract
We investigate the relationship between the baryonic angular momentum and mass for a sample of 36 isolated disc galaxies with resolved neutral hydrogen (H i) kinematics and infrared Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer photometry drawn from - and representative in terms of morphologies, stellar masses, and H i-to-star fraction of - the carefully constructed Analysis of the interstellar Medium in Isolated GAlaxies (AMIGA) sample of isolated galaxies. Similarly to previous studies performed on non-isolated galaxies, we find that the relation is well described by a power law. We also find a slope of α = 0.54 ± 0.08 for the AMIGA galaxies, in line with previous studies in the literature; however, we find that the specific angular momenta of the AMIGA galaxies are on average higher than those of non-isolated galaxies in the literature. This is consistent with theories stipulating that environmental processes involving galaxy-galaxy interaction are able to impact the angular momentum content of galaxies. However, no correlation was found between the angular momentum and the degree of isolation, suggesting that there may exist a threshold local number density beyond which the effects of the environment on the angular momentum become important.