A new HI catalog of Low Surface Brightness galaxies out to z=0.1 - Tripling the number of massive LSB galaxies Known

Abstract

Using both the Arecibo 305m and the Nancay decimetric 100-m class radio telescopes, we have observed the HI line of 116 Low Surface Brightness (LSB) galaxies from the Bothun et al. 1985 subset of LSB galaxies in the Uppsala General Catalog. The observations had a detection rate of 70%, resulting in the new determination of HI properties for 81 galaxies. Surprisingly, roughly half of the detected objects (38) have M_HI >= 10^10 M_sol, placing them into the category of massive LSB galaxies. As previously only ~18 of these `Malin 1 cousins' were known, our results have more than tripled the number of these fascinating and enigmatic systems known. Combining our results with previous studies done on the Bothun et al. catalog results in a well-defined catalog of HI properties of 526 LSB galaxies ranging in redshift space from 0 <= z <= 0.1. With this catalog in hand, we have been able to explore the parameter space occupied by LSB galaxies more completely than has been previously possible. In agreement with previous studies, our results show LSB galaxies with some of the most extreme properties of disk galaxies, including M_HI/L_B ratios often exceeding 10 M_sol/L_sol,B.