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

Abstract

We present a study of the HI and optical properties of nearby (z ≤ 0.1) Low Surface Brightness galaxies (LSBGs). We started with a literature sample of ∼900 LSBGs and divided them into three morphological classes: spirals, irregulars and dwarfs. Of these, we could use ∼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 differences between the three morphological classes. We found that LSB and HSB galaxies span a similar range in HI and stellar masses, and have a similar MHI/M⋆-M⋆ relationship. Among the LSBGs, as expected, the spirals have the highest average HI and stellar masses, both of about 109.8M⊙. The LSGBs’ (g–r) integrated colour is nearly constant as function of HI mass for all classes. In the colour magnitude diagram, the spirals are spread over the red and blue regions whereas the irregulars and dwarfs are confined to the blue region. The spirals also exhibit a steeper slope in the MHI/M⋆-M⋆ plane. Within their local environment we confirmed that LSBGs are more isolated than HSB galaxies, and LSB spirals more isolated than irregulars and dwarfs. Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical tests on the HI mass, stellar mass and number of neighbours indicates that the spirals are a statistically different population from the dwarfs and irregulars. This suggests that the spirals may have different formation and HI evolution than the dwarfs and irregulars.