Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Unveiling The Structure Of Barred Galaxies At 3.6 Μm With The Spitzer Survey Of Stellar Structure In Galaxies (S4g). I. Disk Breaks, Taehyun Kim, Trisha Mizusawa

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

We have performed two-dimensional multicomponent decomposition of 144 local barred spiral galaxies using 3.6 μm images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. Our model fit includes up to four components (bulge, disk, bar, and a point source) and, most importantly, takes into account disk breaks. We find that ignoring the disk break and using a single disk scale length in the model fit for Type II (down-bending) disk galaxies can lead to differences of 40% in the disk scale length, 10% in bulge-to-total luminosity ratio (B/T), and 25% in bar-to-total luminosity ratios. We find that for galaxies …