MIGHTEE HI observations of low surface brightness and ultra-diffuse galaxies in the XMM-LSS field

TL;DR

This study uses HI surveys to identify and analyze low surface brightness and ultra-diffuse galaxies, revealing their gas richness and properties, and demonstrating the importance of HI data in studying faint galaxies.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed analysis of LSBGs and UDGs detected via HI surveys, highlighting their distinct properties and the utility of HI observations in uncovering faint galaxy populations.

Findings

29 LSBGs identified via HI, 26 qualify as UDGs

HI-identified LSBGs are gas rich and often missed in optical surveys

Most HI-selected UDGs follow the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation

Abstract

Untargeted neutral hydrogen (HI) surveys are well suited to identifying low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs) that are gas rich, and they offer a complementary view to optically selected populations. We examined the LSBG population as identified via stellar and gaseous content using the MIGHTEE HI XMM-LSS early science data and the publicly available catalogs of optically identified LSBGs. There is currently little overlap between these datasets, with only three galaxies commonly detected. We performed surface brightness photometry of selected MIGHTEE HI detections to find 29 LSBGs, and 26 of these meet the size requirement (R_eff > 1.5 kpc) to be ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). Furthermore, we extracted HI spectra at the location of all optically identified galaxies, placing upper limits on the HI-to-stellar mass ratio in these systems. While the HI-identified population overall tends toward bluer colors, the HI-identified and the optically selected samples mostly overlap in mean effective surface brightness, effective radii, and color. Although it is not straightforward to discern why the HI-identified LSBGs were missed in optical searches, this work highlights the utility of HI surveys in finding these faint systems. The HI-identified LSBGs are gas rich compared to the general HI-selected population. Furthermore, three out of four HI-selected UDGs with available kinematics show no systematic offset from the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation, although we are biased away from sources with low rotational velocities due to the low spectral resolution of the data. This work demonstrates the utility of HI observations for finding and characterizing the low surface brightness Universe.