SHIELD: The HI Mass-Diameter Relation

Authors

Elizabeth Ruvolo, Macalester CollegeFollow

Document Type

Honors Project On-Campus Access Only

Abstract

While galaxies are complex systems, many of their fundamental properties appear to be correlated. One such relation is the HI mass-diameter (M_HI -D_HI) relation, an empirical correlation between HI diameter and HI mass. This relation appears to hold for massive and gas-rich galaxies regardless of their luminosity or morphological type. However, the low-mass regime of this relation is quite underpopulated by direct observation; it is unknown if the M_HI-D_HI relation extends into this extreme portion of parameter space. The Survey of HI in Extremely Low-mass Dwarfs (SHIELD) is a multi-wavelength galaxy survey which seeks to explore the properties of sources with extremely low-mass HI reservoirs in order to refine our understanding of galaxies and to populate understudied regions of parameter space. In this work, I use the SHIELD sample to help populate the low-mass regime of the HI mass-diameter relation.

Recommended Citation

Ruvolo, Elizabeth, "SHIELD: The HI Mass-Diameter Relation" (2018). Physics and Astronomy Honors Projects. 27.
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/physics_honors/27