Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 000–000 (0000) Printed 16 August 2018 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) Origin of Disc Lopsidedness in the Eridanus Group of Galaxies R.A.Angiras1⋆, C.J.Jog 2,A.Omar3,K.S.Dwarakanath4 1.School of Pure and Applied Physics,M.G. University, Kottayam, 686560,India 2.Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012, India 3.Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences, Manora Peak, Nainital, 263129, India 4.Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, 560080, India (E-mails:[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],[email protected]) Accepted.....; Received ..... ABSTRACT The HI surface density maps for a sample of 18 galaxies in the Eridanus group are Fourier analysed. This analysis gives the radial variation of the lopsidedness in the HI spatial distribution. The lopsidedness is quantified by the Fourier amplitude A1 of the m = 1 component normalized to the average value. It is also shown that in the radial region where the stellar disc and HI overlap, their A1 coefficients are comparable. All the galaxies studied show significant lopsidedness in HI. The mean value of A1 in the inner regions of the galaxies (1.5 - 2.5 scale lengths) is > 0.2. This value of A1 is twice the average value seen in the field galaxies. Also, the lopsidedness is found to be smaller for late-type galaxies, this is opposite to the trend seen in the field galaxies. These two results indicate a different physical origin for disc lopsidedness in galaxies in a group environment compared to the field galaxies. Further, a large fraction (∼ 30%) shows a higher degree of lopsidedness (A1 > 0.3). It is also seen that the disk lopsidedness increases with the radius as demonstrated in earlier studies, but over a radial range that is two times larger than done in the previous studies. The average lopsidedness of the halo potential is estimated to be ∼ 10%, assuming that the lopsidedness in HI disc is due to its response to the halo asymmetry. Key words: Galaxies: evolution - Galaxies:spiral - Galaxies: structure - Galaxies: ISM: HI - Galaxies: Group arXiv:astro-ph/0604120v1 6 Apr 2006 1 INTRODUCTION caused jointly by the spatial and velocity distribution. Such a quantitative measurement of HI spatial asymmetry from The presence of non-axisymmetric distribution of atomic hy- 2-D maps is still to be carried out. drogen gas (HI) in spiral galaxies has been known for many years. In a pioneering study, Baldwin et al. (1980) pointed A large fraction of galaxies show asymmetry. This indi- out large scale spatial asymmetry in the HI gas distribution cates that the lopsidedness is sustainable over a long period of four nearby spiral galaxies M 101, NGC 891, NGC 2841 of time. Yet it’s physical origin is not clearly understood. and IC 342. All these galaxies show HI gas extending out to The cause of disc lopsidedness has been attributed to a va- larger radii on one side than on the other. riety of physical processes, such as the disc response to halo Since then the non-axisymmetric distribution of HI gas lopsidedness which could arise due to tidal interactions (Jog, has been deduced for much larger samples by studying the 1997), or due to mergers with satellites (Zaritsky & Rix asymmetry in the global HI profiles (Richter & Sancisi 1994, 1997), or asymmetric gas accretion (Bournaud et al. 2005). Matthews et al. 1998, Haynes et al. 1998). These studies re- The asymmetry can also be generated due to a disc offset vealed that the HI profiles on the receding and approach- in a spherical halo (Noordermeer et al. 2001).Thus a study ing sides are asymmetric. It was inferred from the sample of HI asymmetry in the outer parts as done in this paper that at least 50% of galaxies studied show HI lopsidedness. can give a direct handle on the halo asymmetry if the disc However, without the analysis of 2-D maps of HI discs, the lopsidedness arises due to halo asymmetry. above studies can only indicate the result of lopsidedness The existence of asymmetry in the velocity domain, i.e., kinematical lopsidedness, has also been detected in spiral galaxies.These studies are based on the analysis of asym- ⋆ On leave from St.Joseph’s College, Bangalore, India metry of the rotation curves on the approaching and re- c 0000 RAS 2 Angiras et al. ceding sides of a galaxy (Swaters et al. 1999) and also by 2005a).Though HI was detected in 31 galaxies out of the 57 analysing the HI velocity field of a spiral galaxy directly selected for observation by Omar and Dwarakanath using (Schoenmakers et al. 1997). It is postulated that the same the Giant Meter-wave Radio Telescope (GMRT), the spi- perturbation potential that gives rise to spatial lopsidedness ral galaxies under consideration here form a subset of these. will also unavoidably give rise to kinematical lopsidedness These spiral galaxies were chosen on the basis of their incli- ◦ ◦ (Jog 1997, Jog 2002). nation, with inclinations in the range of 20 and 80 . This With the advent of near-IR observations in recent years, criterion was adopted so as to get good velocity and surface spatial lopsidedness has also been detected in the distribu- density maps. tion of old stellar population that make up the main mass If a galaxy is almost face on, the circular velocity in- component of galactic discs (Block et al. 1994, Rix & Zarit- formation derived from the velocity map of the galaxy will sky 1995). The harmonic analysis is used to Fourier analyse be reduced to a great extent resulting in greater uncertainty the photometric data on the galaxy images, which gives a in the inclination. Similarly, if a galaxy is viewed edge-on, quantitative measurement of spatial lopsidedness as a func- the line of sight velocity information will be of good quality, tion of radius. It is found that more than 30% of galaxies but the surface density map will not be suitable for the spa- show strong spatial lopsidedness in near-IR(Rix & Zarit- tial lopsidedness analysis. With these criteria, an inclination ◦ ◦ sky 1995, Zaritsky & Rix 1997, Bournaud et al. 2005); but range of 20 -80 was found suitable. the increased sky brightness in the near-IR bands limits the In addition to this, we eliminated those galaxies where measurement of Fourier components of stellar asymmetry the detection in HI was patchy such as NGC 1415. The po- to radii less than 2.5 exponential disc scale lengths. It is sitions and Heliocentric velocities of selected galaxies are also not known whether the lopsidedness in HI and near-IR given in Table 1. bands are correlated. The HI surface density and velocity maps of the selected In the present work, we Fourier-analyse the HI surface galaxies used in this analysis were derived out of image cubes ′′ ′′ density distribution for a sample of eighteen galaxies in the which were convolved to a common resolution of 20 × 20 . − Eridanus group of galaxies (Omar & Dwarakanath 2005a). A 3σ column density sensitivity of 1020 cm 2 was obtained ′′ To our knowledge, this is the first time that an analysis of for 20 resolution surface density images. The velocity res- − this kind has been applied for quantitative measurement of olution was ∼ 13.4 km s 1. A typical HI surface density HI spatial asymmetry. The availability of interferometric 2- contour map and velocity contour map superposed on the D maps of galaxies has made this study possible. Since the DSS image are shown in Fig.1. HI gas usually extends farther out than the stars, the disc With a view to studying the spatial lopsidedness lopsidedness can be measured up to twice or more the ra- of the stellar component, the corresponding R-band im- dial distance than it was possible using stellar light. Since ages of these galaxies were analysed. The R-band im- the lopsidedness is observed to increase with radius (Rix & ages were obtained from Aryabhatta Research Institute Zaritsky 1995, Bournaud et al. 2005), the Fourier amplitude of observational-sciencES (ARIES)using the 104 cm Sam- measured at these distances are expected to provide better purnanand telescope. The details of the observations and constraints on the generating mechanisms for disc lopsided- data reduction methods are given elsewhere(Omar & ness. In addition to this we have also compared the lopsided- Dwarakanath,2006).The final re-gridded images had a typi- ′′ ′′ ness in HI with that in the near-IR band, and show these to cal resolution of 1 .0×1 .0 and a limiting surface brightness be comparable. We show that the main physical mechanism of ∼ 26.0 mag arcsec−2. for the origin of disc lopsidedness for the group galaxies is different than for the field galaxies. This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the HI data used for this analysis is described. The harmonic analy- sis method and the results derived from HI maps and R-band 3 HARMONIC ANALYSIS images are presented in Section 3. A few general points and 3.1 Spatial lopsidedness of HI images the origin of disc lopsidedness are discussed in Section 4. Section 5 contains a brief summary of the conclusions from The HI maps are Fourier analysed to study the spatial asym- the paper. metry of the HI surface density distribution with the help of velocity maps. The HI surface density is extracted along the ′′ concentric annuli each of width 20 after correcting for the projection effects. Such an analysis is prompted by the as- 2 DATA: THE ERIDANUS GROUP OF sumption that, an ideal galaxy can be assumed to be made GALAXIES up of a set of concentric rings along which the gas is rotating The Eridanus group is a loose group of galaxies at a mean about the galactic centre (Begeman,1989).