Bibcode
Martínez-Delgado, David; Pohlen, Michael; Gabany, R. Jay; Majewski, Steven R.; Peñarrubia, Jorge; Palma, Chris
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 692, Issue 2, pp. 955-963 (2009).
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2
2009
Journal
Citations
106
Refereed citations
89
Description
We report the discovery of a giant, looplike stellar structure around
the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4013. This arcing feature extends 6' (~26
kpc in projected distance) northeast from the center and 3' (sime12 kpc)
from the disk plane; likely related features are also apparent on the
southwest side of the disk, extending to 4' (~17 kpc). The detection of
this low surface brightness (μR = 27.0+0.3
-0.2 mag arcsec-2) structure is independently
confirmed in three separate datasets from three different telescopes.
Although its true three-dimensional geometry is unknown, the
sky-projected morphology of this structure displays a match with the
theoretical predictions for the edge-on, projected view of a stellar
tidal stream of a dwarf satellite moving in a low inclined
(sime25°), nearly circular orbit. Using the recent model of the
Monoceros tidal stream in the Milky Way by Peñarrubia and
colleagues as a template, we find that the progenitor system may have
been a galaxy with an initial mass 6 × 108 M
sun, whose current position and final fate are unknown.
According to this simulation, the tidal stream may be approximately ~2.8
Gyr of age. Our results demonstrate that NGC 4013, previously considered
a prototypical isolated disk galaxy in spite of having one of the most
prominent H I warps detected thus far, may have in fact suffered a
recent minor merger. This discovery highlights that undisturbed disks at
high surface brightness levels in the optical but warped in H I maps may
in fact reveal complex signatures of recent accretion events in deep
photometric surveys.