Browsing by Author "Elson Ed"

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    On the existence of a tight planar relation between stellar specific angular momentum, mass, and effective surface brightness for ALFALFA galaxies
    (Oxford University Press, 2024) Elson Ed
    Measurements of the dependence of stellar specific angular momentum (j∗) on stellar mass (M∗) are presented for large samples of galaxies from the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey, spanning the stellar mass range ∼108–1011 M☉. Accurate estimates of j∗ are generated using measurements of I-band effective radius and velocity width of the H I line profile. While the full sample (N = 3607) of galaxies yields a j∗–M∗ relation with power-law index α = 0.404 ± 0.03, it is shown that various subsamples have indices that are very similar to the best literature results, yet with comparatively lower intrinsic scatters. A galaxy’s mean I-band surface brightness within its effective radius (<μeff>) is shown to significantly correlate with j∗–M∗ scatter. A 3D plane fit to all N = 3607 galaxies in log10j∗–log10M∗–<μeff> space yields j∗ ∝ M0.589 ± 0.002 <μeff>0.193 ± 0.002 with scatter σ = 0.089 dex. <μeff>-selected subsamples of size up to N = 1450 yield power-law j∗–M∗ relations mostly consistent with α = 0.55 ± 0.02 from the literature and with intrinsic scatter ranging from 0.083 to 0.129 dex. Thus, this paper presents new, highly accurate measurements of the j∗–M∗ relation that can be used to better understand the important roles played by angular momentum in the formation and evolution of galaxies.