Ogle, Patrick M. and Lanz, Lauranne and Appleton, Philip N. and Helou, George and Mazzarella, Joseph (2019) A Catalog of the Most Optically Luminous Galaxies at z < 0.3: Super Spirals, Super Lenticulars, Super Post-Mergers, and Giant Ellipticals. Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 243 (1). Art. No. 14. ISSN 1538-4365. doi:10.3847/1538-4365/ab21c3. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190626-102331374
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Abstract
We present a catalog of the 1525 most optically luminous galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with r-band luminosity L_r > 8L* and redshift z < 0.3, including 84 super spirals, 15 super lenticulars, 14 super post-merger galaxies, and 1400 giant ellipticals. With mass in stars of 10^(11.3)–10^(12) M⊙, super spirals and lenticulars are the most massive disk galaxies currently known. The specific star formation rates of super spirals place them on or below the star-forming main sequence. They must have formed stars at a high rate throughout their history in order to grow their massive, gigantic stellar disks and maintain their blue u − r integrated colors. Their disks are red on the inside and blue on the outside, consistent with inside-out growth. They tend to have small bulge-to-total (B/T) r-band luminosity ratios, characteristic of disk building via minor mergers and cold accretion. A large percentage of super disk galaxies (41%) have double nuclei, double disks, or other signatures of ongoing mergers. Most (72%) are found in moderate- to low-density environments, while the rest are found at the outskirts of clusters. It is likely that super spirals survive in these environments because they continue to accrete cold gas and experience only minor mergers at late times, by virtue of their enormous masses and angular momenta. We suggest that super post-mergers are the product of super spiral major mergers and may be the precursors of some giant elliptical galaxies found in low-density environments. We present two new gravitational lens candidates in an appendix.
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Additional Information: | © 2019 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2018 June 28; revised 2019 April 4; accepted 2019 April 8; published 2019 July 15. We thank Katey Alatalo for insightful discussions regarding the properties of post-merger and post-starburst galaxies. This work was made possible by the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database and the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which are both operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We thank Ben Chan, Marion Schmitz, and the rest of the NED team for useful discussions and their support of this work. This publication makes use of data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Hubble Space Telescope, retrieved from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Support for MAST for non-HST data is provided by the NASA Office of Space Science via grant NNX09AF08G and by other grants and contracts. Funding for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, and the Participating Institutions. SDSS acknowledges support and resources from the Center for High-Performance Computing at the University of Utah. The SDSS website is www.sdss.org. SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS Collaboration. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. | ||||||||||||||
Group: | Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) | ||||||||||||||
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Subject Keywords: | galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD – galaxies: spiral | ||||||||||||||
Issue or Number: | 1 | ||||||||||||||
DOI: | 10.3847/1538-4365/ab21c3 | ||||||||||||||
Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20190626-102331374 | ||||||||||||||
Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190626-102331374 | ||||||||||||||
Official Citation: | Patrick M. Ogle et al 2019 ApJS 243 14 | ||||||||||||||
Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | ||||||||||||||
ID Code: | 96733 | ||||||||||||||
Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | ||||||||||||||
Deposited By: | Tony Diaz | ||||||||||||||
Deposited On: | 26 Jun 2019 17:43 | ||||||||||||||
Last Modified: | 16 Nov 2021 17:23 |
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