A multiwavelength survey of HI-excess galaxies with surprisingly inefficient star formation

TL;DR

This study investigates HI-excess galaxies with large gas reservoirs and low star formation, revealing diverse origins of their gas and highlighting the need for cosmological simulations to understand their formation.

Contribution

The paper provides multiwavelength observations of HI-excess galaxies, identifying various mechanisms behind their gas excess and emphasizing their complex formation histories.

Findings

Counter-rotating HI disk indicating external gas accretion

Presence of Malin 1-type disk with high angular momentum

High gas fractions in early-type galaxies without merger signatures

Abstract

We present the results of a multiwavelength survey of HI-excess galaxies, an intriguing population with large HI reservoirs associated with little current star formation. These galaxies have stellar masses $M_{\star} >10^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$, and were identified as outliers in the gas fraction vs. NUV$-r$ color and stellar mass surface density scaling relations based on the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS). We obtained HI interferometry with the GMRT, Keck optical long-slit spectroscopy and deep optical imaging (where available) for four galaxies. Our analysis reveals multiple possible reasons for the HI excess in these systems. One galaxy, AGC 10111, shows an HI disk that is counter-rotating with respect to the stellar bulge, a clear indication of external origin of the gas. Another galaxy appears to host a Malin 1-type disk, where a large specific angular momentum has to be invoked to explain the extreme $M_{\rm HI}$/$M_{\star}$ ratio of 166$\%$. The other two galaxies have early-type morphology with very high gas fractions. The lack of merger signatures (unsettled gas, stellar shells and streams) in these systems suggests that these gas-rich disks have been built several Gyr-s ago, but it remains unclear how the gas reservoirs were assembled. Numerical simulations of large cosmological volumes are needed to gain insight into the formation of these rare and interesting systems.