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

TL;DR

This study analyzes the HI and optical properties of low surface brightness galaxies across different morphological types, revealing similarities with high surface brightness galaxies and differences in environment and evolution among types.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of HI and optical properties of LSBGs with HSB galaxies, highlighting morphological and environmental distinctions.

Findings

LSBGs and HSB galaxies have similar HI and stellar mass ranges.

LSBG spirals are the most massive among LSBGs.

LSBGs are more isolated than HSB galaxies, especially spirals.

Abstract

We present a study of the HI and optical properties of nearby ($z$ $\le$ 0.1) Low Surface Brightness galaxies (LSBGs). We started with a literature sample of $\sim$900 LSBGs and divided them into three morphological classes: spirals, irregulars and dwarfs. Of these, we could use $\sim$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 $M_{\rm HI}$/$M_{\star}$--$M_{\star}$ relationship. Among the LSBGs, as expected, the spirals have the highest average HI and stellar masses, both of about 10$^{9.8}$ $M_\odot$. 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 $M_{\rm HI}$/$M_{\star}$--$M_{\star}$ 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.