The GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey – I. Gas fraction scaling relations of massive galaxies and first data release

Creators: Catinella, Barbara; Schiminovich, David; Kauffmann, Guinevere; Fabello, Silvia; Wang, Jing; Hummels, Cameron; Lemonias, Jenna; Moran, Sean M.; Wu, Ronin; Giovanelli, Riccardo; Haynes, Martha P.; Heckman, Timothy M.; Basu-Zych, Antara R.; Blanton, Michael R.; Brinchmann, Jarle; Budavári, Tamás; Gonçalves, Thiago; Johnson, Benjamin D.; Kennicutt, Robert C.; Madore, Barry F.; Martin, Christopher D.; Rich, Michael R.; Tacconi, Linda J.; Thilker, David A.; Wild, Vivienne; Wyder, Ted K.

Abstract

We introduce the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS), an on-going large programme that is gathering high quality H i-line spectra using the Arecibo radio telescope for an unbiased sample of ~1000 galaxies with stellar masses greater than 10^(10) M_⊙ and redshifts 0.025 < z < 0.05 , selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic and Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) imaging surveys. The galaxies are observed until detected or until a low gas mass fraction limit (1.5–5 per cent) is reached. This paper presents the first Data Release, consisting of ~20 per cent of the final GASS sample. We use this data set to explore the main scaling relations of the H i gas fraction with galaxy structure and NUV−r colour. A large fraction (~60 per cent) of the galaxies in our sample are detected in H i. Even at stellar masses above 10^(11) M_⊙, the detected fraction does not fall below ~40 per cent. We find that the atomic gas fraction M_(HI)/M★ decreases strongly with stellar mass, stellar surface mass density and NUV−r colour, but is only weakly correlated with the galaxy bulge-to-disc ratio (as measured by the concentration index of the r-band light). We also find that the fraction of galaxies with significant (more than a few per cent) H I decreases sharply above a characteristic stellar surface mass density of 10^(8.5) M_⊙ kpc^(−2). The fraction of gas-rich galaxies decreases much more smoothly with stellar mass. One of the key goals of GASS is to identify and quantify the incidence of galaxies that are transitioning between the blue, star-forming cloud and the red sequence of passively evolving galaxies. Likely transition candidates can be identified as outliers from the mean scaling relations between M_(HI)/M★ and other galaxy properties. We have fitted a plane to the two-dimensional relation between the H I mass fraction, stellar surface mass density and NUV−r colour. Interesting outliers from this plane include gas-rich red sequence galaxies that may be in the process of regrowing their discs, as well as blue, but gas-poor spirals.

Additional Information

© 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS. Accepted 2009 December 5. Received 2009 December 2; in original form 2009 November 13. BC wishes to thank the Arecibo staff, in particular Phil Perillat, Ganesan Rajagopalan and the telescope operators for their assistance, and Hector Hernandez for scheduling the observations. BC also thanks Roderik Overzier and Luca Cortese for helpful comments on this paper. RG and MPH acknowledge support from NSF grant AST- 0607007 and from the Brinson Foundation. The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, which is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. GALEX is a NASA Small Explorer, launched in 2003 April. We gratefully acknowledgeNASA's support for construction, operation and science analysis for the GALEX mission, developed in cooperation with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) of France and the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology. Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, theMax Planck Society and theHigher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS web site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, University of Cambridge, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max- Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory and the University of Washington.

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