MIGHTEE H Iobservations of low surface brightness and ultra-diffuse galaxies in the XMM-LSS field

Abstract

Untargeted neutral hydrogen (H I) surveys are well suited to identifying low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs) that are gas rich, and they offer a complementary view to optically selected populations. We examined the LSBG population as identified via stellar and gaseous content using the MIGHTEE H I XMM-LSS early science data and the publicly available catalogs of optically identified LSBGs. There is currently little overlap between these datasets, with only three galaxies commonly detected. We performed surface brightness photometry of selected MIGHTEE H I detections to find 29 LSBGs, and 26 of these meet the size requirement (Reff > 1.5 kpc) to be ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). Furthermore, we extracted H I spectra at the location of all optically identified galaxies, placing upper limits on the H I-to-stellar mass ratio in these systems. While the H I-identified population overall tends toward bluer colors, the H I-identified and the optically selected samples mostly overlap in mean effective surface brightness, effective radii, and color. Although it is not straightforward to discern why the H I-identified LSBGs were missed in optical searches, this work highlights the utility of H I surveys in finding these faint systems. The H I-identified LSBGs are gas rich compared to the general H I-selected population. Furthermore, three out of four H I-selected UDGs with available kinematics show no systematic offset from the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation, although we are biased away from sources with low rotational velocities due to the low spectral resolution of the data. This work demonstrates the utility of H I observations for finding and characterizing the low surface brightness Universe.