2017/09/04 by T. Westmeier, Danail Obreschkow, D. Obreschkow +15 · 23 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Emission spectrum #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #H-alpha #Physics #Protein filament #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Radio telescope #Spectral line #Star formation #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stx2289
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 472(4), 4832-4850 (Oxford University Press) · 20 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables; accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2017/09/04 · openalex publication_date 2017/09/04 · arxiv updated 2017/10/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present the results of a deep survey of the nearby Sculptor group and the associated Sculptor filament taken with the Parkes 64-m radio telescope in the 21-cm emission line of neutral hydrogen. We detect 31 H i sources in the Sculptor group/filament, eight of which are new H i detections. We derive a slope of the H i mass function along the Sculptor filament of |α = -1.10+0.20-0.11|, which is significantly flatter than the global mass function and consistent with the flat slopes previously found in other low-density group environments. Some physical process, such as star formation, photoionization or ram-pressure stripping, must therefore be responsible for removing neutral gas predominantly from low-mass galaxies. All of our H i detections have a confirmed or tentative optical counterpart and are likely associated with luminous rather than ‘dark’ galaxies. Despite a column density sensitivity of about 4 × 1017 cm−2, we do not find any traces of extragalactic gas or tidal streams, suggesting that the Sculptor filament is, at the current time, a relatively quiescent environment that has not seen any recent major interactions or mergers.