David Martínez-Delgado et al. 2009 ApJ 692 955 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/692/2/955
DISCOVERY OF A GIANT STELLAR TIDAL STREAM AROUND THE DISK GALAXY NGC 4013
FREE ISSUEDavid Martínez-Delgado1,2,8, Michael Pohlen3,4, R. Jay Gabany5, Steven R. Majewski6, Jorge Peñarrubia7 and Chris Palma6,9,10
Show affiliationsWe report the discovery of a giant, looplike stellar structure around the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4013. This arcing feature extends 6' (~26 kpc in projected distance) northeast from the center and 3' (
12 kpc) from the disk plane; likely related features are also apparent on the southwest side of the disk, extending to 4' (~17 kpc). The detection of this low surface brightness (μR = 27.0+0.3 –0.2 mag arcsec–2) structure is independently confirmed in three separate datasets from three different telescopes. Although its true three-dimensional geometry is unknown, the sky-projected morphology of this structure displays a match with the theoretical predictions for the edge-on, projected view of a stellar tidal stream of a dwarf satellite moving in a low inclined (25°), nearly circular orbit. Using the recent model of the Monoceros tidal stream in the Milky Way by Peñarrubia and colleagues as a template, we find that the progenitor system may have been a galaxy with an initial mass 6 × 108 M ☉, whose current position and final fate are unknown. According to this simulation, the tidal stream may be approximately ~2.8 Gyr of age. Our results demonstrate that NGC 4013, previously considered a prototypical isolated disk galaxy in spite of having one of the most prominent H I warps detected thus far, may have in fact suffered a recent minor merger. This discovery highlights that undisturbed disks at high surface brightness levels in the optical but warped in H I maps may in fact reveal complex signatures of recent accretion events in deep photometric surveys.
- Keywords
galaxies: dwarf; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: halos; galaxies: individual (NGC 4013); galaxies: interactions
- Dates
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Issue 2 (2009 February 20)
Received 2008 January 25, accepted for publication 2008 October 20
Published 2009 February 23
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Discovery of a Giant Stellar Tidal Stream Around The Disk Galaxy NGC 4013
David Martínez-Delgado et al. 2009 ApJ 692 955
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