HI content of massive red spiral galaxies observed by FAST

TL;DR

This study uses FAST to observe the HI content of massive red spiral galaxies, revealing that many contain significant HI in their outer blue disks, challenging the notion that they are fully quenched.

Contribution

First detailed HI observations of massive red spirals with FAST, showing many have HI in outer blue regions, indicating incomplete quenching.

Findings

75 of 113 galaxies detected with HI by FAST

HI detection correlates with bluer outer disks

Higher HI mass associates with bluer outer g-r color

Abstract

A sample of 279 massive red spirals was selected optically by Guo et al. (2020), among which 166 galaxies have been observed by the ALFALFA survey. In this work, we observe HI content of the rest 113 massive red spiral galaxies using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). 75 of the 113 galaxies have HI detection with a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) greater than 4.7. Compared with the red spirals in the same sample that have been observed by the ALFALFA survey, galaxies observed by FAST have on average a higher S/N, and reach to a lower HI mass. To investigate why many red spirals contain a significant amount of HI mass, we check color profiles of the massive red spirals using images observed by the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. We find that galaxies with HI detection have bluer outer disks than the galaxies without HI detection, for both ALFALFA and FAST samples. For galaxies with HI detection, there exists a clear correlation between galaxy HI mass and g-r color at outer radius: galaxies with higher HI masses have bluer outer disks. The results indicate that optically selected massive red spirals are not fully quenched, and the HI gas observed in many of the galaxies may exist in their outer blue disks.