The number, luminosity and mass density of spiral galaxies as a function of surface brightness

1995/11/02 by Stacy McGaugh · 1 voice · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Brightness #Disc galaxy #Elliptical galaxy #Fundamental plane (elliptical galaxies) #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Luminosity #Luminosity function #Physics #Spiral galaxy #Surface brightness #Surface brightness fluctuation #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/280.2.337

published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 280 (1996) 337 · Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Uuencoded compressed tarred postscript. Also available at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/preprint/PrePrint.html

arxiv created 1995/11/02 · arxiv published 1995/11/02 · arxiv updated 1995/11/02 · openalex publication_date 1996/05/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

I present analytic expressions for the relative number, luminosity and mass density of disc galaxies as a function of surface brightness. These surface brightness distributions are asymmetric, with long tails to lower surface brightnesses. This asymmetry induces systematic errors in most determinations of the galaxy luminosity function. Galaxies of low surface brightness exist in large numbers, but the additional contribution to the integrated luminosity density is modest, probably 10–30 per cent.

Cited by

• Nuclear X-Ray Activity in Low-surface-brightness Galaxies: Prospects for Constraining the Local Black Hole Occupation Fraction with a Chandra Successor Mission
• The Southern Dwarf Hunt: Local Group Dwarf Candidates in the Southern Sky
• A Cosmologically Motivated Description of the Dark Matter Halo Profile for the Low Surface Brightness Galaxy, Malin 1
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: the number and luminosity density of galaxies
• The properties of a large sample of low surface brightness galaxies from SDSS

Discussions

• You can usually see these things on good photographic plates, they just don’t look like much. The current definition of UDG is identical to what I called VLSBGs in arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph... once you [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]